Why is human Mars exploration so surprisingly hard?
by James Oberg
Monday, August 17, 2009
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Here’s the way I’ve come to see it. It should have been no surprise that “On-To-Mars” never happened. The reasons directly affect today’s chances of tackling the task in the near future.
First, since Apollo had gloriously succeeded in its major purpose—restoring American status as the leading high-tech nation in the world—the political support for further spending evaporated in the face of new, more urgent challenges. Apollo had “worked”. Making the point again on a different stage would have added little if any value.
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Third, major components of the Apollo team—the experienced engineers, technicians, and managers—had by 1969 chosen to return to “normal” life. Gathered from a hundred separate industries with engineering experience in a thousand projects, these men and women had consciously and intentionally chosen to put their personal lives on hold and devote 60-plus-hour workweeks to the “project of the century”—for a limited period of time. And that period was over. Talented and dedicated people remained, but the breadth of experience that had made the Moon program feasible shrank markedly.
Fourth, in terms of the science harvest of the lunar missions, Apollo had reaped enough raw data to require decades of study to digest it, formulate new theories, and define the new questions that needed answers through on-site exploration. The “cover story” that curiosity had been the driver for Apollo (and would be for its successors) lost validity when the next set of scientific questions would take an academic generation or two to crystallize.
The engineering challenges of much, much longer space flights far from Earth (with no chance of resupply or rescue) had been grossly underestimated.
Fifth, there were things we discovered about the hazards of spaceflight that demanded new assessments and the development of new capabilities. For example, extending Apollo-class lunar operations wasn’t merely a matter of carrying more batteries and more sandwiches. The hardware had proven just barely capable of the minimum mission during limited thermal environments and on limited geographical subsets of the Moon. Extending the range in time and space demanded an entirely new generation of space vehicles. For example, the unexpectedly abrasive lunar dust just ate up the Apollo spacesuits, corroding their air seals and jamming their mechanical joints. On the last missions, the suits showed signs of breakdown after only three days of use.
Sixth, the engineering challenges of much, much longer space flights far from Earth (with no chance of resupply or rescue) had been grossly underestimated. Even today aboard the International Space Station less than 500 kilometers from home, proving out truly long-term reliable regenerative life support hardware is only now showing signs of success.
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http://thespacereview.com/article/1448/1