Well, that was faster than I thought.
NASA revealed yesterday the design of the new launch and crew vehicle to replace the space shuttle. I almost want to laugh when I see it because it's a Saturn V with two shuttle-style rockets on the side. Obviously, NASA is sacrificing some creativity here, but they don't get paid for aesthetically pleasing rocket designs. It is supposed to be able to take astronauts "further into space than any nation has gone before." With a Saturn V plus 2 rockets on the side...I'd certainly hope so! With that much poundage on the pad, will there even be a pad after this thing goes off? It is interesting to note though that this would be a liquid fueld rocked assembly. Initial tests (in 6 years) will be with solid rocket fuel, but the eventual hope is that this will be an entirely liquid hydrogen/oxygen propelled vehicle. Robert Goddard would be proud I guess. They are calling this the "Shuttle Launch System" or SLS which is specifically designed for deep space exploration, just like the Saturn V was specifically designed to get us to moon.
They are calling it "deep space" exploration, but the NASA administrator said in his press conference that one of the ultimate goals of this project is to get us to Mars. If you recall after Columbia broke apart in 2003, George Bush's call to action involved a top-down reorganization of NASA including long-term exploration goals of getting back to the moon by 2020 and Mars by 2030. While most people immediately saw through that as nothing more as an attempt to get people excited about the space program again, it does bring up a very interesting question. Let's say we do eventually develop the capability to send a manned misson to Mars. What would we learn about Mars from a manned mission that we don't already know from the multitude of unmanned missions that have already went there?
If you understand the history of space exploration, sending manned missions to the moon were scientifically developed, but deeply rooted in politics. Considering that we were at the height of the Cold War against the only other country with a space presence (the USSR), it made political sense to accelerate a time table to send astronauts to the moon, and with the help of some really smart people in pressure situations (and a lot of cigarette smoke), we were able to pull it off. Today, there really is no political pressure to get a manned mission to Mars the same way there was pressure to go to the moon. We learned an awful lot about the moon from the manned missions, and the study of moon rocks returned to Earth have proven invaluable in the study of not just our Earth-moon system, but the universe itself. In the 60s and 70s, it made perfect scientific sense to send manned missions to the moon so that we could do these things. Nowadays, some of the same instruments that were used in the manned missions are being sent to other planets and celestial bodies on unmanned probes specifically programmed to land safely, deploy its payload, and send data back to earth, with the added benefit of not having to worry about bringing it back. The only real drawback to the unmanned probes is that we don't get the benefit of chemical research on the actual rocks themselves. However, should a Mars mission happen, would it even be possible to bring Mars rocks back to Earth?
I'm not saying I would not be tremendously excited with a deep space mission to Mars or somewhere else, I'm just saying that as of this moment it is a practical impossibility. The SLS program is estimated to cost around $35 billion (the NASA budget for 2011 was only $18 billion). NASA first and foremost needs dollars, and at this moment in time, considering the political priorities are unfortunately elsewhere, it really isn't getting the dollars it needs, which opens the doors for space cowboys like Richard Branson to run amok. I'm really hopeful that this SLS project will get people jazzed up about space again like the Space Race in the 60s and the start of the Shuttle program in the 80s. And who knows, maybe we'll get somebody on the Red Planet in our lifetime.
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