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posted by chromas on Monday April 22 2019, @09:23PM   Printer-friendly

The Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) has found that NASA is unlikely to send humans on a mission near Mars (not including a landing on the surface of Mars) any sooner than 2037:

An independent report concluded that NASA has no chance of sending humans to Mars by 2033, with the earliest such a mission could be flown being the late 2030s.

[...] STPI, at NASA's direction, used the strategy the agency had laid out in its "Exploration Campaign" report, which projects the continued use of the Space Launch System and Orion and development of the lunar Gateway in the 2020s. That would be followed by the Deep Space Transport (DST), a crewed spacecraft that would travel from cislunar space to Mars and back. NASA would also develop lunar landers are related system to support crewed missions to the lunar surface, while also working on systems for later missions to the surface of Mars.

That work, the STPI report concluded, will take too long to complete in time to support a 2033 mission. "We find that even without budget constraints, a Mars 2033 orbital mission cannot be realistically scheduled under NASA's current and notional plans," the report states. "Our analysis suggests that a Mars orbital mission could be carried out no earlier than the 2037 orbital window without accepting large technology development, schedule delay, cost overrun, and budget shortfall risks."

That schedule is driven by the technology risks associated in particular with the Deep Space Transport, including life support systems and propulsion, that require long lead times. A mission to Mars launching in 2033, the report concluded, would need to have critical technologies tested by 2022, which is unlikely. Moving ahead without completing those technologies first, the report stated, will "dramatically increase technology and schedule risks for the DST and could force the DST design to be revised if any one of these technology testing programs reveals problems."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:47PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @10:47PM (#833572)

    Indeed, NASA has to change directions more often than web stacks, which is saying a lot. A political way is needed to settle on a plan and stick with it through multiple administrations.

  • (Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday April 22 2019, @10:52PM (1 child)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Monday April 22 2019, @10:52PM (#833578)

    Actually it's not quite true: web stacks evolve by piling up more slow shit on top of already slow shit to deliver extremely complicated and wasteful ways of making a document presentation program act as an OS, whereas NASA space programs consist in scrapping whatever study they were wasting monye on under the previous administration to undertake new studies and deliver nothing at all in the end.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday April 22 2019, @11:18PM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Monday April 22 2019, @11:18PM (#833589) Journal

      Sometimes NASA also makes prototypes and models [youtube.com]

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday April 22 2019, @11:55PM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday April 22 2019, @11:55PM (#833600)

    tells me NASA hasn't been an agency capable of much of anything...

    Which is a real shame. It is, of course the politicians fault NASA is so terrible. If they were given a budget and a goal, then left alone to acheive the ghoal I think they'd probably do OK.