Was a Manned Mars mission in 1982 feasible?

[Airbus A340]

The true believers cannot handle the truth. "Technology" is different ways to use energy. That's it, that's what it is. No energy, no technology, at least not tech worth posting about on the internet. "Money" is a call on energy. "Investment" is putting off energy use today so you can use more energy in the future. What happens when the stored sunlight accumulated over millions of years starts to run out? The true believers will tell us that the conventional view on oil is incorrect and that oil is made by (insert magical process that has no relationship to reality whatsoever) and that humanity can continue business as usual. (As an aside, ask Exxon or Shell what scientific models they use to predict where to find oil. They say that oil was made by sea creatures that inhabited shallow seas long ago. Why don't the abiotic oil people go to Shell and offer their services?) The true believers have no ability whatsoever to look back and see what has happened to aerospace over the last 50 years and see that fossil fuel price increases made aerospace an industry that cannot afford its future. As long as the labor, steel, aluminum, glass, plastic, etc. were all cheap the USAF could afford the century series and all kinds of false starts that never made it into service. Now, look at the programs. SSTs died not because of "tree huggers" "libruls" "commies" or whatever. They died because higher bypass turbofans made SSTs uncompetitive. The techno-worshippers will blame tree huggers, liberals, etc. but reality is that there is no money. The money is a call on energy that is not there. Some true believers will say that fusion etc. can save us but that deus ex machina is too unbelievable. It's easier just to retreat into Sci Fi Fan Fantasyland and say that the tree huggers, liberals, the UN, and the government are lying and that there are oceans of oil right under our feet and if the commies would just let us tap it, we could afford all tech. Instead the pinkos want humanity to suffer so they block access to unlimited energy that humanity needs to realize all the techno dreams. My favorite thing to hear from the true believers is "A buddy of mine worked in the shale and he says there's more oil there than we could ever drill." I think that buddy if theirs is qualified to be head of the US department of Energy unless they do away with that department in January.

The true believers look at the sigmoidal growth curve on tech and deny the flattening part at the top. That part of the graph only exists because of (insert hated political party and/or group of people here). They think the high slope regions can continue forever if we all just BELIEVE. In the end, they blame people who do not BELIEVE in tech for tech failing. "Technology" is failing for the same reason that a vehicle fails when it runs out of gas or a lightbulb fails when the juice runs out. Why is oil running out? According to the true believers it's because some of us believe it is running out. If we just put our FAITH that there is enough oil the oil will be there. "Rain follows the plow." This time there is no Corps of Engineers or Bureau of Reclamation to bail out the people who have faith that growth is forever. No Bureau of Oil is going to build a pipeline to take the oil to the gas station so they can fill up their SUVs and pickup trucks.

The Mars mission is unaffordable in a world with:
1. Everything I posted above and in the post I made before.
2. One Cat 5 hurricane a year instead of one occurring every 5-10 years.
3. Land sliding into the ocean.
4. The ocean rising and taking land and what is on it.
5. Horrific wildfires that burn homes, farms, and businesses.
6. Every rebuild caused by disasters costing more every year because the lower grade ores, lower grade forests, and lower grade quarries require more and more energy each year to turn out the same or lower quality building materials.

The engineers and scientists are desperately needed to fix real problems that actually exists here on Earth. Instead the true believers want to build these:

1. NFTs.
2. Crypto
3. AI
4. Supersonic airliners
5. Small Modular Reactors to power 1-3.
6. Spaceships so we can either do Star Trek or Star Wars someday.

What happens when we have so many problems on Earth we cannot solve them? Spending colossal resources so that a handful of people can leave Earth and try to start over on an inferior planet seems like the dumbest possible answer.

Cue the "Well I choose to be an optimist." The optimists can explain to us where all the minerals and energy to keep doing "technology" are going to come from.

If we cared about the future we would be preparing for a very different future. It's not the future that people who post on fora like this read about when we were kids and that drove us to go into science, engineering, or programming. We need to use our skills to make that future the best it can be. Mars is a no. SSTs are a no. Aerospace planes and SSTOs are not going to happen.

Having said all that, the technical aspects of a Mars mission are still interesting.

 

[publiusr]

Here's the thing--while deflecting an asteroid is easier than Mars colonies--the latter is easier than stopping flood-basalts.

FLEM was about as bare bones as it gets. I think two Saturns could have a brief stay.

Now, I think a single Block II SLS might allow a spartan Carlo Rubbia Americium mission of some kind.

Two Starships with ammonia?

 

[Airbus A340]

Here's the thing--while deflecting an asteroid is easier than Mars colonies--the latter is easier than stopping flood-basalts.

FLEM was about as bare bones as it gets. I think two Saturns could have a brief stay.

Now, I think a single Block II SLS might allow a spartan Carlo Rubbia Americium mission of some kind.

Two Starships with ammonia?

it's not about stopping Deccan Traps 2 Basaltic Boogaloo, it's about keeping humanity alive after it, hopefully with civilization.

 

[Justo Miranda]

The true believers cannot handle the truth. "Technology" is different ways to use energy. That's it, that's what it is. No energy, no technology, at least not tech worth posting about on the internet. "Money" is a call on energy. "Investment" is putting off energy use today so you can use more energy in the future. What happens when the stored sunlight accumulated over millions of years starts to run out? The true believers will tell us that the conventional view on oil is incorrect and that oil is made by (insert magical process that has no relationship to reality whatsoever) and that humanity can continue business as usual. (As an aside, ask Exxon or Shell what scientific models they use to predict where to find oil. They say that oil was made by sea creatures that inhabited shallow seas long ago. Why don't the abiotic oil people go to Shell and offer their services?) The true believers have no ability whatsoever to look back and see what has happened to aerospace over the last 50 years and see that fossil fuel price increases made aerospace an industry that cannot afford its future. As long as the labor, steel, aluminum, glass, plastic, etc. were all cheap the USAF could afford the century series and all kinds of false starts that never made it into service. Now, look at the programs. SSTs died not because of "tree huggers" "libruls" "commies" or whatever. They died because higher bypass turbofans made SSTs uncompetitive. The techno-worshippers will blame tree huggers, liberals, etc. but reality is that there is no money. The money is a call on energy that is not there. Some true believers will say that fusion etc. can save us but that deus ex machina is too unbelievable. It's easier just to retreat into Sci Fi Fan Fantasyland and say that the tree huggers, liberals, the UN, and the government are lying and that there are oceans of oil right under our feet and if the commies would just let us tap it, we could afford all tech. Instead the pinkos want humanity to suffer so they block access to unlimited energy that humanity needs to realize all the techno dreams. My favorite thing to hear from the true believers is "A buddy of mine worked in the shale and he says there's more oil there than we could ever drill." I think that buddy if theirs is qualified to be head of the US department of Energy unless they do away with that department in January.

The true believers look at the sigmoidal growth curve on tech and deny the flattening part at the top. That part of the graph only exists because of (insert hated political party and/or group of people here). They think the high slope regions can continue forever if we all just BELIEVE. In the end, they blame people who do not BELIEVE in tech for tech failing. "Technology" is failing for the same reason that a vehicle fails when it runs out of gas or a lightbulb fails when the juice runs out. Why is oil running out? According to the true believers it's because some of us believe it is running out. If we just put our FAITH that there is enough oil the oil will be there. "Rain follows the plow." This time there is no Corps of Engineers or Bureau of Reclamation to bail out the people who have faith that growth is forever. No Bureau of Oil is going to build a pipeline to take the oil to the gas station so they can fill up their SUVs and pickup trucks.

The Mars mission is unaffordable in a world with:
1. Everything I posted above and in the post I made before.
2. One Cat 5 hurricane a year instead of one occurring every 5-10 years.
3. Land sliding into the ocean.
4. The ocean rising and taking land and what is on it.
5. Horrific wildfires that burn homes, farms, and businesses.
6. Every rebuild caused by disasters costing more every year because the lower grade ores, lower grade forests, and lower grade quarries require more and more energy each year to turn out the same or lower quality building materials.

The engineers and scientists are desperately needed to fix real problems that actually exists here on Earth. Instead the true believers want to build these:

1. NFTs.
2. Crypto
3. AI
4. Supersonic airliners
5. Small Modular Reactors to power 1-3.
6. Spaceships so we can either do Star Trek or Star Wars someday.

What happens when we have so many problems on Earth we cannot solve them? Spending colossal resources so that a handful of people can leave Earth and try to start over on an inferior planet seems like the dumbest possible answer.

Cue the "Well I choose to be an optimist." The optimists can explain to us where all the minerals and energy to keep doing "technology" are going to come from.

If we cared about the future we would be preparing for a very different future. It's not the future that people who post on fora like this read about when we were kids and that drove us to go into science, engineering, or programming. We need to use our skills to make that future the best it can be. Mars is a no. SSTs are a no. Aerospace planes and SSTOs are not going to happen.

Having said all that, the technical aspects of a Mars mission are still interesting.

I am not worried about the future of humanity because I am 73 years old and have no grandchildren. In my opinion, when the situation worsens, humanity will react by investing the gigantic economic resources that it now spends on cosmetics, sports and integration of minorities in solving the new problems, otherwise nature will solve them by the usual procedure and there will always be someone left to start again.

A small asteroid falling on a medium-sized city would help structure a common awareness of planetary risks, better than the panda bear nonsense, the single thought and the photo of the united planet taken by Lovell from Apollo VIII.

 

[357Mag]

If humanity messes up enough to go extinct, my money is on rats to develop into the dominant lifeform. For a while. They are adaptable, hardy, breed like mad.
For further reading: Dougal Dixon's 1981 Life After Man

All -

Lab rats, are being replaced by Lawyers.

There are some things a Lab rat just won't do !


Regards,
357Mag

 

[Airbus A340]

Humanity will not react by investing away from things. Humanity is reacting by doubling down on what it does now. We will do it more and more and more until things completely, totally fall apart. The people who go off and build somewhat sustainable little farms will have them taken by people who have more force. The forceful people can't run the farm so that falls apart too. The only question is how far it falls. Extinction of the species, end of civilization, civilization without electricity, where does the fall stop? The start over again requires water, good farmland, and resources that are being depleted. It's also hard to start over when the world is so polluted that plants, animals, and people have trouble completing a normal life cycle due to insidious pollutants.

 

[TomS]

Wernher Von Braun at the time of Apollo always thought that 1982 was a good time to go to Mars using a modified Saturn V rocket powered by nuclear propulsion. After all when President Kennedy made his now famous speach which included the line and do the other things, that other thing was Mars.

Coming in late, but this just isn't true. The "and the other things" is an awkward little callback to the previous part of the speech, where Kennedy talks about other tasks that were hard to accomplish but that people did anyway: climbing mountains (Everest), flying across the Atlantic (Lindbergh) , or Rice playing Texas in (American) football. There is no mention at all of Mars, direct or indirect.

John F. Kennedy Speech

"We choose to go to the Moon", officially titled the address at Rice University on the nation's space effort, is a September 12, 1962, speech by United States President John F. Kennedy to further inform the public about his plan to land a man on the Moon before 1970.

www.rice.edu

And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

 

[martinbayer]

Coming in late, but this just isn't true. The "and the other things" is an awkward little callback to the previous part of the speech, where Kennedy talks about other tasks that were hard to accomplish but that people did anyway: climbing mountains (Everest), flying across the Atlantic (Lindbergh) , or Rice playing Texas in (American) football. There is no mention at all of Mars, direct or indirect.

Mars *was* at least implicitly and indirectly referred to in these passages of the same speech:

"For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond (my emphasis), and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace."

"Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there (once again my emphasis), and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

 

[TomS]

Mars *was* at least implicitly and indirectly referred to in these passages of the same speech:

"For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond (my emphasis), and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace."

"Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there (once again my emphasis), and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

OK, fair. But still, "the other things" was not a Mars reference.

 

[Justo Miranda]

All -

Lab rats, are being replaced by Lawyers.

There are some things a Lab rat just won't do !


Regards,
357Mag

Lab rats, are being replaced by Lawyers.

Because lawyers lend themselves to doing things that not even rats would do.

Humanity will not react by investing away from things. Humanity is reacting by doubling down on what it does now. We will do it more and more and more until things completely, totally fall apart. The people who go off and build somewhat sustainable little farms will have them taken by people who have more force. The forceful people can't run the farm so that falls apart too. The only question is how far it falls. Extinction of the species, end of civilization, civilization without electricity, where does the fall stop? The start over again requires water, good farmland, and resources that are being depleted. It's also hard to start over when the world is so polluted that plants, animals, and people have trouble completing a normal life cycle due to insidious pollutants.

The solution is not to go back to the farm but to move forward to the stars, that or die.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Mars *was* at least implicitly and indirectly referred to in these passages of the same speech:

"For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond (my emphasis), and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace."

"Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there (once again my emphasis), and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

In my opinion, what is implicit in Kennedy's speech is: we have screwed up in Cuba and Turkey, we have lost the usefulness of the Alaska-Scotland-Norway defensive line... how to distract voters' attention?

When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the sage's finger.

 

[XaHyMaH]

The biggest difficulties would have been

c) take-off from Mars (fuel), accelerate to get to the Earth (Fuel!), decelerate to land on Earth (FUEL!)

The answer is 42 Yes. But the price is too high - only with the powers of all mankind.

 

[Grey Havoc]

A joint production from Isaac Arthurs and Curious Droid from back in 2018 that may be of interest:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv7aigOzQKo

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dqd72ALkQ

 

[Scott Kenny]

A recent re-read has given me some more thoughts.

On a side note, thousands of tonnes of water is ridiculous; you'd have a water recycling system set up. There were lots of ideas for that being worked on through the decades.

Oh, absolutely you'd have a recycling system set up. But dragging a lot of water around is convenient for a lot of reasons, up to and including "we can us it as reaction mass on the trip home" if you're using nuclear-thermal rockets.

You can make breathable air out of it. You can use it for cooling systems. You can use it for hygiene and washing clothes (both of those strongly recommended over a multi-year mission). Obviously the crew will drink some, and you will need some more for whatever passes for cooking.

Most of the water will be left in Mars orbit while the crew lands there. This isn't Apollo where the Command and Service Modules are together roughly the size of the Lander Module. This is more like a cruise ship sending the tender into port. Or that cool scene in Aliens where the Marines wake up, load up, and drop in, but the ship that carried them to their destination is enormous and stayed in orbit.

Apollo 15 and 17 were the longest Moon missions: 12 days exposure of the crew to cosmic radiation. A 1982 round trip mission to Mars would have taken 2-3 years, maybe even more. That is a different magnitude of risky, even if you only take crew health into consideration.

A certain Hyman G Rickover said this when discussing risk in the context of the US Navy's nuclear submarine development:
"Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous"

Yep. When it comes to safety systems, assume that it will fail in the worst possible way, and then figure out how to recover from that situation.

If we give up on seeing the sun rise every day, digging in on Earth is probably cheaper. It would however make it more visible that surviving a meteor strike is income-dependent. Guards at the shelters' entrances are superfluous on the Moon because the great unwashed won't be there.

That's fine, once they're on the Moon they will never come back to Earth.

I read a lot of "Nonfiction Sci Fi" like Ben Bova's book "Welcome to Moonbase".

I remember that book!

The economic case made back then was that the Moon could be mined for minerals that would be used to build space solar satellites.

Yep, that was from deep in the Solar Power Satellite dream phase.

It's not a terrible plan, but it does involve aiming large microwave antennas at earth to provide the orbit-to-surface power connection.

I have some questions about space:

1. How does space material get to Earth? How does it survive reentry? How much does it cost to provide an RV that can hold gold, iridium, nickel, etc? 1000 tons of gold is worth 85 billion dollars. 1000 tons of nickel is 15 million dollars. Where and how do the RVs land? How do the space materials impact the Earth economy and raise the standard of living for people on Earth?

If it's just raw materials like metals you can just drop it. No RV needed, but you could make some ablative layers out of lunar regolith so less refined metal burns up in atmosphere. Just pick a point where you want things to land, and let the nice folks from the nuclear missile side of the house plan the drops in places that nobody cares overmuch but aren't too deep in the water, either. Example: Gulf of Mexico/America, most of the US East Coast has a long shallow continental Shelf, Europe has the Dogger Bank and the northern part of the Bay of Biscay...

My personal preference would be to load the stuff onto the orbital elevator and run it down in train cars. Which of course requires building an orbital elevator. No easy task.

2. What is the probability of a devastating meteorite impact? What is the best way to help humanity survive it? What about bunkers (mineshafts) instead of Mars of or the Moon?

Depends on scale of impact. During the Cold War, the various nations built bomb shelters. A better recognized threat means better designed shelters.

But some impactors are just. not. survivable. For example, the K-T impactor that killed off the dinosaurs and some 95% of all other species. A hit like that isn't really something you can survive on the surface. Shoemaker-Levy might even sterilize the planet outright.

3. I think there is a ridiculous gap between a Mars mission (probably doable for hundreds of billions or trillions) and a Mars colony.

4. What is the time frame for a Mars mission? I talked to a guy who told me he asked a NASA engineer in the '80's how long it would take to get back to the Moon if they wanted to go ASAP. The engineer said 10 years. The guy pointed out that it took less time from when JFK ordered the Moon mission to the original landing. The NASA engineer's reply. "10 years." I cant imagine it being less than 10 years to get to Mars for a visit. A colony would take 20-30 years.

Correct, there is an immense difference between "sending a dozen dudes to Mars for 2 years" and "establishing a self-sufficient (or nearly so) Mars colony".

Between NASA and a couple of rich idiots we can get a couple of Mars missions out and see if we can really survive on Mars (If they get ready to go in the next 20 years, I will sign up for crew). Maybe the rich idiots will even fund a colony, which will basically make them moneyless.

5. By the time this Mars business get going, what will be happening here on Earth? We're looking at fossil fuels depletion, renewable energy wearing out, and fusion still being 20 years off in the area of energy. In minerals we will be looking at using lower and lower grade ores that require greater and greater quantities of energy to mine and process. We will have more and more issues with microplastics, PFAS, and other forms of pollution. Socially, the generations raised by screens will be taking over. Why go to Mars? It's difficult. It's easier to watch a Mars video on TikTok or to play a Mars colony RPG. Earth's population will be larger and food supply will become an issue. It is unlikely that nations will cooperate. Rather, they will fight over the dwindling supplies of fossil fuel, water, and quality farmland. These problems may become too large to allow Mars expenditures before a Mars mission can even be completed.

Those problems may happen, yes. Might even be "will happen".

But if humanity never leaves Earth then we die. And that's that.

 

[pathology_doc]

If they thought it was that important (as important as the moon was to Kennedy), they would have brute-forced it.

 

[Archibald]

If they thought it was that important (as important as the moon was to Kennedy), they would have brute-forced it.

In his 1969 pitch Von Braun had 1982 and 1986 options, related to budget and technologies. 1988 would have good opportunity too.

 

[exclaimedleech8]

Not for the amount of money that American taxpayers were willing to pay

 

[Seragina]

Even if the public was supportive their elected Reagan administration at the time was slimming down the government and "cutting" spending. It was never gonna be a thing.

 

[martinbayer]

Even if the public was supportive their elected Reagan administration at the time was slimming down the government and "cutting" spending. It was never gonna be a thing.

Yeah - that's when the repubs started going down the "let's decimate the evil fedgov" (while we'll still cash in on our lavish congress salaries, thank you very much...) bent they've been on ever since. Utterly shameless cynical hypocrites successfully pandering to idiot mouth breathers...

 

[Archibald]

Not for the amount of money that American taxpayers were willing to pay

Nixon, actually. He was presented NASA annual budget options ranging from "Mars in 1982" to "no more manned spaceflight after Skylab" with Shuttle, continuing lunar ops or space station between the two extremes. He picked a suboptimal Space Shuttle, and the rest is history.

 

[exclaimedleech8]

Nixon, actually. He was presented NASA annual budget options ranging from "Mars in 1982" to "no more manned spaceflight after Skylab" with Shuttle, continuing lunar ops or space station between the two extremes. He picked a suboptimal Space Shuttle, and the rest is history.

Nixon was representing voters who consistently expressed in opinion polls that they thought NASA was spending too much money.

 

[martinbayer]

Nixon was representing voters who consistently expressed in opinion polls that they thought NASA was spending too much money.

Given the state of the union, both then and now, regrettably but unfortunately understandable. To think Musk just might be the last best hope of humanity...