Obama & Congress to Work on a Mars Plan NASA Chief Says

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden-a former shuttle craft commander, spared with senators concerning the agency's fiscal 2011 budget. Congress is pushing for specific missions and deadlines. They (the Obama administration) has drawn opposition for plans to scrap the Moon return and Mars mission for long-range goals.

So far, about all we got out of the administration is an expansion of robotic exploration of Mars.

I want to quote two sections from Seth Borenstein's article that was posted on comcast.net: And while the new NASA plan includes extra money — $6 billion over five years — for private spaceships and developing new rocket technology, NASA shouldn't be just about spending, the senators said. It should be about John F. Kennedy-like vision.

"Resources without vision is a waste of time and money," Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said, calling the Obama space plan a "radical change of vision and approach." He vowed to fight the plan "with every ounce of energy I have."

And former chief astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson said the new plan "has no clear path, no destination, no milestones and no program focus."

And this quote: That is why he said the new NASA plan invests in developing in-orbit fuel depots, inflatable spaceship parts, new types of propulsion and other technology.

Bolden would not even guess when NASA would try to send astronauts to Mars, but said the technology NASA is studying could cut the trip to the Red Planet from three months to a matter of days if it works.

"We're oh-so-close, but we've got to invest in that technology," Bolden testified. end quote of article.

New technology huh? Anti-matter? That's going to take longer to develop I afraid than conventional means of travelling back to the Moon and to Mars.

Maybe Bolden is hanging his space helment on VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket). I would if I was him. It would make for a quicker trip to Mars to go with that engine technology. In October 2008, the VX-200 prototype achieved ful power using Argon as propellant in the Ad Astra's Houston laboratory.

VASIMR video at full power in 2009.

But, just what are you going to hang the VASIMR onto? Now this is where Orion as a test vehicle makes sense to me.

Or, another off-the-wall idea I had was to convert one of the space shuttles into a deep space exploration craft. Basically, you cut the wings off since the vehicle will never again return to the surface of Earth. Instead, it will be "home ported" at the International Space Station. This new craft will be launched in the normal space shuttle fashion and dock with the ISS. Replacement (fully fueled) fuel tanks will be launched up to the ISS and mated to the shuttle where the wings used to be, whenever it needed for a mission. The payload bay will contain the docking adaptor, airlock, and the pressurized mission module. The flight deck would be gutted and all the avionics developed for Orion will now be installed in this new exploration craft.

Now THAT type of craft I envision would benefit from the VASIMR technology.

UPDATE: February 26, 2010- Blue Origin, the outfit that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos created announced on Space.com additional information on their New Shepard, a Vertical Take-Off and Landing rocket. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35603622/ns/technology_and_science-space/).

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Ref. Business Week. February 24, 2010. "Obama Will Work With Congress on Mars Plan, NASA Chief Says" by Jeff Bliss.(http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-24/obama

-will-work-with-congress-on-mars-plan-nasa-chief-says.html).

comcast.net, February 25, 2010. by Seth Borenstein (AP).

(http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20100224/US.SCI.NASA.Hearing/).

NASA website, anti-matter (http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/antimatter_spaceship.html).

VASIMR (http://spacefellowship.com/news/art7153/plasma-rocket-engine-vasimr-vx-200-first-stage-achieves-full-power-rating.html).

Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocketship

Billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame has been putting his money into a new project for several years now – Blue Origin is the name of this company and they are developing a reusable spaceship known as “New Shepard” that looks like a egg standing on four legs. It is in fact – a Dropship. Please go back to the September archive on this blog to look for a article about the 10th anniversary of the First Single-Stage-to-Orbit test vehicle – “DC-X What the Future SHOULD Have Been” (September 10, 2008).

The New Shepard is designed to fly multiple astronauts into suborbital space at very competitive prices. First tests of the vehicle have been staged at their private launch site in West Texas, not too far from El Paso, Texas. Blue Origins plan, aside from offering flights to tourists, would provide opportunities for scientists to fly their experiments into space and in a microgravity environment. And they have been getting some help from NASA's Alan Stern, the former chief of space science. First remotely controlled or unpiloted flights can begin as early as 2011 with the first manned launches to follow within a year of that target date.


The New Shepard vehicle consist of a pressurized Crew Capsule carrying the experiments and astronauts atop the Propulsion Module. Once in space, the Crew Capsule separates from the Propulsion Module and the two craft will reenter the atmosphere separately. The Crew Capsule will land softly under a parachute at the launch site. The Crew Capsule is reported to be able to carry three of more astronauts depending on the mission profile.


Ref. : Space.com ( http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/081208-blue-origin-stern.html ). Article by Leonard David posted December 8, 2008. “Secretive Space Vehicle Tested at Private Texas Site”