Before we can consider seeding terrestrial stations on Mars, we should consider seeding a communications net around Mars. Once we have a half dozen satellites circling Mars, we can start stable comms from the surface to orbit to Earth. It may take 10-20 minutes (for a signal to be received), but the communication is the essential piece here.
I'd also consider putting satellites in Earth and Mars lagrange L3, L4, and L5. It's the start of a solar system based internet, even if it is rudimentary. Think of this as a store-and-forward network where signals may be too weak for Earth to pick up, but can hit Jupiter L5 to Mars planet, to Earth L3.
All of these (including the European satellites) except the Indian MOM orbiter contain a communications relay radio (for relaying from Mars surface to Earth) provided by NASA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio)
We actually have quite a bit of infrastructure built up around Mars already. All these spacecraft are referred to as the "Mars fleet" (which is frakking awesome...).
Pretty sure this reason in specific is why SpaceX accepted the 1 billion USD investment from Google Ventures for their satellite internet constellation project in Seattle. If Musk's endgame plan is a serious Mars colony, there needs to be both location and communication over the entire planet (of mars). There also needs to be bidirectional communication with Earth. An orbiting constellation makes sense to do this.
It's about time. Engineering decisions shouldn't be made based of irrational fears of general population. If nuclear power plant is best option for space mission we should use it.
I agree with your sentiment but let's face it, sending humans to Mars is as much PR as it is scientific research (maybe even more). Look how we ended up on the moon in the first place. If NASA wants to get the funding it has to make it as marketable as possible.
If there's a big push back from the general population it will be hard to convince the politicians to invest billions in an unpopular project with no short-term dividends.
I agree. Though we might disagree on where legitimate concerns end and irrational fears start. It is also non-trivial to decide (and argue around) what a 'best option' is without defining a scale of what 'good' and 'bad' would be, and what factors are considered in that scale, and which ones are left out.
Are the nuclear reactors we're transporting to Mars safe in case of rocket explosion? Because rocket explosions/failures happen way more often than Fukushima type situations.
Irrational fears? What are the chances of the rocket launcher blowing up with the reactor? How would we compute the fallout range as a function of altitude of the blast?
I don't thinnk it was the fear of the general population, because what influence do we have on dangerous endeavors?
If the scientist can do it safely, they could just do it.
It must have something to with the state of technology and not being able to do it safe until now.
I looked into some numbers on this, comparing theoretical costs of nuclear power with a solar PV solution on Mars.
Kilopower (NASA's research project for a Martian nuclear fission reactor, from the article): 7,200 kg for 40 kW. [1]
ISS solar arrays: 14,515 kg for ~100 kW in Earth orbit. [2] If we assume 40-50% Earth solar insolation on Martian surface, the ISS PV array probably isn't far off 40 kW output on Mars
Conclusions:
Nuclear reactor would have approx. 50% launch weight. SpaceX estimate $45/kg payload with a Falcon Heavy, so about $324K for Kilopower or ~$600K for the ISS arrays.
The build cost of the ISS arrays was around $300 million (space PV is way more expensive than terrestrial). The development and test costs of Kilopower is around $15 million; build cost of final units is unknown.
You would have to automate and/or remotely control all of the nuclear power plant operations. Dust storms would be a challenge to a PV solution, though not insurmountable.
They actually look very comparable. Nuclear has an edge due to it weighing half as much as the equivalent PV generation system. I think there is definitely value to a simpler system that's more decentralized... but that's harder to quantify.
Edit: people noted I forgot to factor in batteries. 40 kW = 480 kWh per 12 hours. 1 Tesla PowerPack = 220 kWh @ 50 kW. Let's assume a worst case that the base needs the same electrical power during the night as it does in the day, so we need around 5 PowerPacks to get us through each night. 1 PowerPack weighs 1,622 kg, 5 = 8,110 kg. Wow, we need another Falcon Heavy trip just to bring us enough batteries for 1 night! Let's not mention those dust storms that can last for a month or so...
Now nuclear looks much better... and that has its own complexities. Colonising Mars is going to be very hard. :)
We have commercial satellites that also use much cheaper arrays with much higher efficiency.
Using 30 year old solar tech with a very mass-inefficient design is putting your thumb on the scale of such a comparison.
I like kilopower and am a fan (it really helps for super deep space missions that currently have to rely on the tiny amount of Plutonium-238 we have and can make), but we're going to use a LOT of solar power on Mars just as we do today.
A robotic rover can afford to shut down during the night but humans aren't able to do that. So you need to average out the power generated over the day night cycle and add mass for enough batteries to store daytime power for use at night. Last I did the calculations that roughly doubled the weight. So more like a factor of 8 than 2. But still, power generation won't be the majority of the mission weight so it's not a slam dunk.
On the moon it would be. Half-month long nights mean you'd need a lot more batteries if you're making a permanent settlement and aren't at one of those spots on the south pole where you can always see the sun traveling along the horizon.
EDIT:
I think solar panels have gotten a lot lighter since the ISS went up and when I last did the math nuclear and solar were a lot closer.
>The build cost of the ISS arrays was around $300 million (space PV is way more expensive than terrestrial).
That was 20 years ago, on a government contract, for panels that must survive the rigors of actual space.
Panel manufacturing costs have dropped almost 10x since then, and the environment (assumed under the protection of martian atmosphere) which they will operate will be far less extreme than Earth orbit, necessitating less expensive materials. I'm not so sure your numbers account for this.
Thanks for this concise comparison. As others have noted, you also need to account for batteries, and battery churn. When the batteries need to be replaced, you have quite a bit of additional payload that needs to be delivered. I am sure that nuclear fuel rods (or pellets, or whatever fuel type they are using) will be dramatically lighter and easier to transport.
Dust will need to be cleaned off of the panels daily, which adds further expense associated with dedicated external missions to the array of panels.
Most of the ancillary considerations weigh in favor of the nuclear option.
Better windmills :D This green energy hoax barely sustains communities on earth, why would sane someone risk on Mars? Mission needs reliability - we have nuclear power sources reliably working for decades, powering bigger things than calculator.
How will they convert heat into electricity? On earth you have plenty of water as a good medium for the heat and a thick atmosphere that serves as the heatsink. On mars you have neither.
There are a few obvious things that need to be stated in order for the public to prepare for a manned Mars mission.
The fact that we're going to have to use some sort of atomic batteries is one of them. Another is that we can't search the entire planet for life before we go visit. It's impossible to disprove a negative.
My preference would be to see every piece of gear have an integrated solid-state nuclear battery and O2/H2O generator. That way we design one cheap, rugged, relatively low-weight and low-volume piece of gear and then just mass-manufacture it. Also no astronaut would ever be far from water or air, and there becomes a zero chance of death by asphyxiation or dehydration.
Not a great headline; fission reactors have been critical part of the Mars Design Reference Mission architecture for the last quarter-century. The news seems to be that NASA is starting to test prototypes (which is definitely still cool).
Wouldn't the moon would be a better choice? Asteroids could be processed there, it could be a de facto source of microwave power for asteroid mining ops and a weigh station to bring metals back safely.
The moon is boring, Mars once had water and very likely life on it. Moon has a month-long day/night cycle and less gravity, two thing humans aren't well adapted.
It doesn't matter, as the only infrastructure available for refining fissile isotopes is on Earth. Even if you found appropriate ores directly adjacent to the reactor site, they would still have to be shipped back to Earth to turn them into reactor fuel.
You need fully mature steel, aluminum, and electronics industries on Mars before you can think about UF6 centrifuges. The rocket equation just murders any idea anyone might have about shipping any kind of factory-in-a-box to any other rock in the Solar system--except one that takes in the local regolith and produces a copy of itself, or a similar factory-in-a-box with a different combination of inputs and outputs.
You're trying to jump right from putting the ore in at one end, and getting reactor fuel out at the other, but you apparently need at least a North Korea-sized economy inside the black box to do that, and Mars currently has an economy smaller than Sealand. There are no humans on Mars, and the robots currently there don't mine or farm anything in excess of their own immediate needs.
I'm getting kinda sick of the media putting more & more non-sense in our heads instead of actual news. This is pure fantasy. They can't build nuclear reactors on Mars! The only reason why they write this article is because the topic "Mars" generates large amounts of views. News shouldn't be a bussiness :(
They don't have to build it on Mars. A kilowatt scale nuclear reactor is small and also safer and more portable. The Russians have already sent nuclear powered satellites into space.
Genuine question: If it's possible to use mini nuclear reactors in satellites then why they just can't land that thing somehow on Mars (like they did with Curiosity) and use it on planet surface to power lab?
Will no one think of the children?! I mean, specifically, NASA's hostage martian slave children. Will the reactors be made half-scale, so they can be operated by the children's tiny hands? Will the children be forced to labor in the plutonium mines, far from OSHA oversight?
[+] [-] Cumulonimbus|8 years ago|reply
I'd also consider putting satellites in Earth and Mars lagrange L3, L4, and L5. It's the start of a solar system based internet, even if it is rudimentary. Think of this as a store-and-forward network where signals may be too weak for Earth to pick up, but can hit Jupiter L5 to Mars planet, to Earth L3.
And greetings, all, BTW.
[+] [-] Robotbeat|8 years ago|reply
We already do.
> Once we have a half dozen satellites circling Mars...
We already have half a dozen active satellites circling Mars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Mars_Odyssey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Express
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAVEN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExoMars_Trace_Gas_Orbiter
All of these (including the European satellites) except the Indian MOM orbiter contain a communications relay radio (for relaying from Mars surface to Earth) provided by NASA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio)
We actually have quite a bit of infrastructure built up around Mars already. All these spacecraft are referred to as the "Mars fleet" (which is frakking awesome...).
[+] [-] SEJeff|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/technology/google-makes-1...
[+] [-] tajen|8 years ago|reply
If there isn't already a patent on space strategies, it may be a good idea to create a patent agency. The first intergalactic agency.
[+] [-] TomK32|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp0ck|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simias|8 years ago|reply
If there's a big push back from the general population it will be hard to convince the politicians to invest billions in an unpopular project with no short-term dividends.
[+] [-] mikejb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelMoser123|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiku|8 years ago|reply
It must have something to with the state of technology and not being able to do it safe until now.
[+] [-] davedx|8 years ago|reply
Kilopower (NASA's research project for a Martian nuclear fission reactor, from the article): 7,200 kg for 40 kW. [1]
ISS solar arrays: 14,515 kg for ~100 kW in Earth orbit. [2] If we assume 40-50% Earth solar insolation on Martian surface, the ISS PV array probably isn't far off 40 kW output on Mars
Conclusions:
Nuclear reactor would have approx. 50% launch weight. SpaceX estimate $45/kg payload with a Falcon Heavy, so about $324K for Kilopower or ~$600K for the ISS arrays.
The build cost of the ISS arrays was around $300 million (space PV is way more expensive than terrestrial). The development and test costs of Kilopower is around $15 million; build cost of final units is unknown.
You would have to automate and/or remotely control all of the nuclear power plant operations. Dust storms would be a challenge to a PV solution, though not insurmountable.
They actually look very comparable. Nuclear has an edge due to it weighing half as much as the equivalent PV generation system. I think there is definitely value to a simpler system that's more decentralized... but that's harder to quantify.
Edit: people noted I forgot to factor in batteries. 40 kW = 480 kWh per 12 hours. 1 Tesla PowerPack = 220 kWh @ 50 kW. Let's assume a worst case that the base needs the same electrical power during the night as it does in the day, so we need around 5 PowerPacks to get us through each night. 1 PowerPack weighs 1,622 kg, 5 = 8,110 kg. Wow, we need another Falcon Heavy trip just to bring us enough batteries for 1 night! Let's not mention those dust storms that can last for a month or so...
Now nuclear looks much better... and that has its own complexities. Colonising Mars is going to be very hard. :)
[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201600...
[2] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/element...
[+] [-] Robotbeat|8 years ago|reply
You should use Ultraflex or similar as a standard. Instead of the ~7W/kg you used for ISS arrays at Earth orbit, you'll get ~150W/kg at Earth orbit:
https://www.orbitalatk.com/space-systems/space-components/so...
We have commercial satellites that also use much cheaper arrays with much higher efficiency.
Using 30 year old solar tech with a very mass-inefficient design is putting your thumb on the scale of such a comparison.
I like kilopower and am a fan (it really helps for super deep space missions that currently have to rely on the tiny amount of Plutonium-238 we have and can make), but we're going to use a LOT of solar power on Mars just as we do today.
[+] [-] Symmetry|8 years ago|reply
On the moon it would be. Half-month long nights mean you'd need a lot more batteries if you're making a permanent settlement and aren't at one of those spots on the south pole where you can always see the sun traveling along the horizon.
EDIT:
I think solar panels have gotten a lot lighter since the ISS went up and when I last did the math nuclear and solar were a lot closer.
[+] [-] aphextron|8 years ago|reply
That was 20 years ago, on a government contract, for panels that must survive the rigors of actual space.
Panel manufacturing costs have dropped almost 10x since then, and the environment (assumed under the protection of martian atmosphere) which they will operate will be far less extreme than Earth orbit, necessitating less expensive materials. I'm not so sure your numbers account for this.
[+] [-] iplaw|8 years ago|reply
Dust will need to be cleaned off of the panels daily, which adds further expense associated with dedicated external missions to the array of panels.
Most of the ancillary considerations weigh in favor of the nuclear option.
[+] [-] motoboi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batushka|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legulere|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|8 years ago|reply
http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lare...
Tracked via Wikipedia, which has a brief article:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilopower
[+] [-] rocky1138|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|8 years ago|reply
The fact that we're going to have to use some sort of atomic batteries is one of them. Another is that we can't search the entire planet for life before we go visit. It's impossible to disprove a negative.
My preference would be to see every piece of gear have an integrated solid-state nuclear battery and O2/H2O generator. That way we design one cheap, rugged, relatively low-weight and low-volume piece of gear and then just mass-manufacture it. Also no astronaut would ever be far from water or air, and there becomes a zero chance of death by asphyxiation or dehydration.
[+] [-] moovacha|8 years ago|reply
I think you meant, it's impossible to prove a negative. More specifically, to prove that something does not exist.
[+] [-] pheldagryph|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Design_Reference_Mission
MDRM 5.0 PDF (big file; power generation is 7.3.4, page PDF-pg#85): https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/373665main_NASA-SP-2009-566.pdf
[+] [-] jasonrhaas|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] logfromblammo|8 years ago|reply
You need fully mature steel, aluminum, and electronics industries on Mars before you can think about UF6 centrifuges. The rocket equation just murders any idea anyone might have about shipping any kind of factory-in-a-box to any other rock in the Solar system--except one that takes in the local regolith and produces a copy of itself, or a similar factory-in-a-box with a different combination of inputs and outputs.
You're trying to jump right from putting the ore in at one end, and getting reactor fuel out at the other, but you apparently need at least a North Korea-sized economy inside the black box to do that, and Mars currently has an economy smaller than Sealand. There are no humans on Mars, and the robots currently there don't mine or farm anything in excess of their own immediate needs.
[+] [-] nradov|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Horizon_Blue|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] xorfish|8 years ago|reply
That's why you build them on earth and transport them to mars.
There are some small designs such as the 4MW(el) u-battery that are small enough for a transport.
[+] [-] vectorEQ|8 years ago|reply
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