perfidy

The first part of this series is here.

In the previous post, I discussed how we could quickly and relatively cheaply develop the means to launch people and large cargos into orbit. That is the necessary precursor to any significant endeavor in space. While the methods I outlined would reduce costs to orbit, they would not make them exactly cheap. But they would give us a ladder while others could work on building an escalator.

Once we have the first step under control, we can begin thinking about the precursors for a Mars mission: the ability to live, unsupported, in space for long periods; a ship that can get us to Mars; and the technology to live and explore on the Martian surface.

Living in Space

The Space Station is the second American experiment in living in space. (We allowed the first attempt, Skylab to burn up on reentry because we had stopped using disposable rockets before the shuttle was operational.) The space station will have value in the near term as a way station in orbit – a place for crews to rest, to assemble other vehicles for other missions, and a transshipment point for crews and supplies heading from the earth to the moon. As such, it will eventually need to be expanded, possibly with components from Shuttle-C vehicles, or with components launched directly from earth. Because of the constant comings and goings, and due to the need to use the ISS as an orbital construction site, it will not be suitable for experiments in long duration survival without outside inputs of supplies and so on.

To begin to solve the problem of living in space as the crew of a Mars mission, we would need to set up a separate laboratory to develop the technology needed to achieve self-sufficiency for periods of one to two years. This laboratory would be another orbiting space station, located near the ISS in case of emergency, but designed from the outset to take in a crew and remain isolated for a period of months, and then years as they test the equipment and techniques that will eventually keep the Mars crew alive. The philosophy behind this facility would have to be one of constant build/test/rebuild/test. Since there is little chance that we’d get it right in one, we should allow for the need to slowly and incrementally refine our knowledge, in conditions closely resembling the eventual mission.

The inhabitants (or inmates) of the lab would research closed cycle life support systems, growing food in space (and eating it), the effects of freefall on the human body and a thousand other needful things. While we branch out to other missions – on the moon, or elsewhere – we will have this laboratory constantly increasing our knowledge of how to survive and thrive in space. It will take years to prepare for the final departure of the Mars mission, and this laboratory will be working the whole time without holding up any other aspect of the preparations. (And naturally, this orbital facility would be backed up by many more researchers and engineers on Earth.) Some links: space station life support, Plant based life support, and an overview.