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Three Pasadena Scientists Propose “Minimal” Plan to Fastrack Mars Landing

Published on Thursday, July 2, 2015 | 11:46 am
 

Three scientists at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have proposed a long-term stepwise series of missions to Mars that would first send a manned spaceship to one of Mars’s moons, and then put a two-man crew on the red planet in 2039, 24 years from today.

The three JPL scientists – Hoppy Price, John Baker and Firouz Naden – described the approach in an article, A Minimal Architecture for Human Journeys to Mars, published in New Space, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert Inc. The article is available on the New Space website until July 29, 2015.

Price, Baker and Naden said in the article that their study of a “minimal architecture” concept was motivated by an earlier study by the National Research Council which said with contraints in the annual budget and projected inflation, any manned mission to Mars would not be possible until about the middle of the century.

Their plan would make use of elements currently being developed or planned by NASA to stay within the budget.

“We refer to this architecture as minimal because it would minimize large new development efforts and rely largely on elements currently being developed or planned by NASA, such as SLS, Orion, a deep space habitat, and a 100-kWe-class SEP tug,” the three authors said in the abstract of the proposal.

In the architecture proposed, human missions to Mars would begin with a four-man crewed landing on the moon Phobos in 2033, followed by a short-stay landing on Mars by two astronauts in 2039, and continue with a one-year stay by a crew of four on the planet in 2043.

These campaigns will be supported by earlier missions and activities, including continuing research and development in the International Space Station, flight testing of a solar electric propulsion vehicle, and a dress rehearsal and test flight of a Mars landing system on Earth’s moon.

The scientists also proposed a stepwise approach because landing a human mission on Mars in one shot would be too costly.

“Getting a human crew to Mars orbit and then safely back to Earth poses significant technical challenges for the first mission,” the authors said. “If one adds the challenges of landing a crew on the surface of Mars, conducting surface operations, and then lifting them off the surface all on that first mission, then it becomes an unaffordable first step to the red planet.”

Editor-in-Chief G. Scott Hubbard of New Space cited the JPL scientists’ proposal in the publication’s editorial titled “We Can Send Humans to Mars Safely and Affordably,” and said, “With all of these previous technical and fiscal issues addressed, we can again believe that the dream of sending people to Mars is alive.

“The next step is to build a broad consensus around the goal and strategy for a long-term humans to Mars program.”

 

 

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