NASA STUDY SUMMARY- "Mission Study of Manned Venus Flyby w/ Extended Apollo Hardware"

[luke strawwalker]

Here's a short but interesting study from 1967 on how to do a Venus flyby using a standard Saturn V single-launch to launch an uprated Apollo CSM and Mission Module to Venus for a flyby mission...

The Saturn V would launch the S-IVB/MM/CSM stack into a circular parking orbit, then reignite to insert the stack into a 2 day 70,000 nm apogee 100 nm perigee highly elliptical orbit. During the coast to apogee, the CSM would dock with and extract the MM from the spent S-IVB, extend its solar panels and communications antennas, and start up its guidance platform, and then perform a checkout of the mated vehicles, then perform a trim manuever at apogee for final checkout of the SPS and MM guidance systems. The vehicle would then coast back down to 100 nm perigee, perform another burn of the SPS on the SM to gain another 3,000 fps of velocity, which would inject the spacecraft on Trans-Venus Injection trajectory. The vehicle would have about 150 days flight time to Venus, perform the flyby, and have another roughly 150 or so days flight time along the return trajectory. The SM would have to perform three midcourse corrections outbound and another three inbound, and would reenter Earth's atmosphere at 45,000 fps, about 10,000 fps faster than most lunar return velocities, which required beefing up the heat shield, which was the biggest mod necessary to the flight hardware for this mission.

It's very interesting to me that the Apollo hardware and Saturn V were THIS capable-- one would assume that such a mission would require and in-space stage at the least to actually be capable of performing such a mission, but not so... at least not for FLYBY missions-- if one were to want to ORBIT Mars or Venus then you WOULD require a substantial in-space propulsion stage... and of course landers is another order of magnitude beyond that (not that anybody would WANT to land on Venus). This wasn't merely a stunt, either-- the vehicle could carry a substantial scientific experiment suite on the mission as well...

Truly sad how much capability died with Saturn V and Apollo...

Later! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is the mission module and CSM stack ready for TVI...


Pic two a cutaway of the same stack... VERY preliminary I'd say... looks like George C. Scott's apartment in "Dr. Strangelove" LOL


Pic three is the MM and CSM atop the Saturn V for launch... the MM took the place of the LM for the Venus mission...


Pic four is the TVI manuever plan-- enter highly elliptical 2 day orbit using the S-IVB, then do a perigee burn with the SPS in the CSM (to maximize the Oberth effect) to inject to Venus trajectory...


Pic five is the typical interplanetary trajectory that would have been followed for this mission... total trip time was 367 days for the longest mission...


Later! OL JR

[stefanj]

Manned flyby mission strike me as pretty pointless.

Especially Venus! Nothing to see but an unbroken white cloudbank. No opportunity to really do anything but direct instruments. You can't "go back" or change course appreciably to take advantage of something interesting you've "seen."

OTOH, something like this mission directed at a near Earth orbiting asteroid would be a lot more interesting.

[luke strawwalker]

Couple more shots from a more in-depth treatment of the subject of a Manned Venus Flyby mission from a Bellcomm Inc paper written the same year, apparently proposing using the "wet workshop" method to create the mission module from the S-IVB after burnout and purging the residual propellants and ullage gases from the tanks... (haven't summarized it, didn't really see the need, though I suppose I could if someone were interested in the how's/why's of the mission...

Here's the relevant snips from the study...

Pic one is the 'wet workshop" idea for the Mission Module...


Pic two is the evolutionary steps to create the 'wet workshop' module from the existing stage...


Later! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Manned flyby mission strike me as pretty pointless.

Especially Venus! Nothing to see but an unbroken white cloudbank. No opportunity to really do anything but direct instruments. You can't "go back" or change course appreciably to take advantage of something interesting you've "seen."

OTOH, something like this mission directed at a near Earth orbiting asteroid would be a lot more interesting.

You have a point... I've seen various similar proposals for doing these exact same kinds of missions to Mars and YES even VENUS once we have Orion and some kind of hab module and EDS stage... so what goes around comes around, and there are no truly NEW ideas... LOL:)

Personally I think it rather foolish to contemplate a manned Venus mission-- as you go inward toward the sun, the inverse square law will ensure that solar radiation increases, and radiation exposure on a mission of such duration is going to be an issue, at some level (whether serious or manageable). True, it's easier to shield against solar particle radiation (put the water/propellant tanks between you and the sun and you're pretty well protected) and cosmic background radiation is going to be essentially the same density and coming from all directions and is going to be much harder to shield against (and poses the longer-term health risks) whether you're going to the moon, Mars, or Venus. At least going to Mars on a flyby mission, the inverse square law is working in your favor going away from the sun, and warning times from solar observation satellites will be longer since they're still in the vacinity of Earth, which is exactly the opposite of a trip to Venus. Cosmic radiation is going to essentially be the same either way.

The scientific return was going to be fairly good for such a mission-- it was planned to do far more than just have the astronauts 'hang out' during the interplanetary cruise phases inbound/outbound while waiting for a few hours of visual observations "snapping pictures out the windows" as Venus floated by... There were plans for small Venus lander probes, various scientific investigations, measurements, and observations, and experiments, observations, measurements, and astronomical/solar observation and deep space environment studies during the planetary transit cruises...

The flyby missions are "planetary missions on-the-cheap"... they avoid the difficult research and development of hardware and techniques necessary for entry/descent/landing, such as heat shields, landers, surface systems, surface EVA suits, etc. Venus would be a very poor candidate for a manned mission IHMO for the very reason that a surface sortie is pretty much out of the question, even if we did have EDL technologies and hardware to land on Mars or elsewhere-- and a manned orbital mission around Venus is also of limited value because of the extreme surface heat makes surface teleoperated rovers virtually impossible, and remote sensing studies from orbit can be better achieved from unmanned platforms much cheaper and safer than using a manned vehicle. About the only feasible reason for a manned Venus mission is, IMHO, if one were to pursue a "blimp" high in the Venusian atmosphere where the temperature and pressure are similar to Earth surface conditions (several tens of thousands of feet up IIRC). The atmosphere is still highly poisonous sulfur-laden carbon dioxide, but it would be survivable with only a respirator oxygen mask and face shield (ala AVATAR-- you certainly wouldn't want to get sulfuric acid fumes in your eyes!) BUT such a mission would be of limited scientific value (unless you developed cooled teleoperated tethered surface experiment packages that could be lowered down to the vacinity of the surface, getting cooling fluid and power as well as control inputs from the tethered blimp high above....) Presently such a mission is about as realistic as building a Tabana Gas Mine in a Cloud City in Venus's atmosphere ala "The Empire Strikes Back"...

A flyby mission to Mars would be only marginally more scientifically valid-- without being able to go into orbit, the window for direct control of teleoperated rovers on the surface is too short to be worthwhile, and basically any remote sensing information we could obtain would be better and cheaper to obtain by unmanned platforms. An orbital (no landing) mission would be MUCH more scientifically valuable, as remote control landers (instead of the autonomous landers we currently send which are merely "updated" with instructions from Earth daily, and rely on their own 'intelligent' capabilities to prevent them from driving off cliffs and such, since the radio lag of around 15-20 minutes between Mars and Earth prevent direct teleoperation ala remote control... such remote control landers on the surface of Mars could be operated continuously and directly by crews in orbit, receiving the feeds from the sensors and cameras in real time and controlling the rovers below in real time. A suitably designed rover equipped with a Robonaut-like human analog could perform many of the same functions of human surface astronaut via telepresence, and without the difficulties of developing a human-rated large lander, ascent vehicle, surface habs, rovers, suits, power systems, life support, EDL systems and hardware, etc... This is the likeliest way for us to get to Mars in the next 40 years, and to think, basically with a little investment, we could have done it nearly 40 years ago with Apollo hardware modified for the job...

Again, quite sad. I don't think a manned Mars landing is going to happen for at least another 30 years, if then. There just isn't the desire or money or reason for doing it (politically anyway).

Later! OL JR :)

PS... I'm sort of ambivalent about an asteroid mission... it's the 'low hanging fruit' that seems like we could feasibly do with an Orion (or pair of Orions with one modded to be a hab module and science platform, while the other remains the crew transport and both providing the propulsion necessary for the mission). A dedicated hab module and in-space propulsion stage would create a lot of capability for such missions, and is extensible to other deep space destinations, such as Mars/Phobos, which are of more scientific value. It avoids the EDL costs/difficulties while giving us more experience in long duration deep space missions than we got with Apollo, which would be uncharted territory actually. It'd be nice to go somewhere besides Earth orbit for a change... though it wouldn't have the excitement or science possibilities that a long-duration moon mission would (though such a long-term lunar mission could probably be conducted almost as well by teleoperated rovers from Earth-- ala Lunokhod: the Next Generation :chuckle: ) I just think that probably in a lot of ways, an asteroid mission would be just as productive if performed by an unmanned platform in orbit or soft landing (more like "mooring" to the asteroid since there is insufficient gravity for true landing, which is what makes an asteroid mission attractive as a manned mission target-- it avoids the heavy costs of EDL technology while giving SOME of the benefits of it).

It's worthwhile, and it's probably the best we're going to get for a LONG time, but I don't know if it's THAT worthwhile compared to some things we could be doing, especially as compared to unmanned missions on a bang/buck scale...

[Randy]

I find this thread very interesting. I haven't read much along the lines of extended use of the Apollo era hardware, didn't know they had even considered anything like this for Venus. I wish they had followed what we all assumed would be the next steps of establishing a permanent moon base and then on to Mars, etc. Think where things would be now if there was the same push on those goals as getting to the moon in the first place.

Of course it would have been expensive but the human race should be and would be further along in reaching the stars if there had been that kind of direction, determination and desire. If you wonder why we should have done any of it, it's pretty simple to me. Because we can, to better ourselves, and at some point in the future extend our reach into the universe. I still like to think that at some point in the not so distant future space travel between the planets and stars will be routine.

The discoveries that came from the original Space Race are what put us where we are today in regard to technology. Finding ways to over come previously impossible obstacles 40-50 years ago is how you can read this now from your home, on your lap top or Ipod top. Our hi-tech world of 2011 will seem like tinker toys in 50 years. Think where things would be if we had just maintained the original momentum the last 50. Compare vaccum tubes to Ipod and Droid.

Could have been there years ago, if only.

Randy
www.vernarockets.com

[Joe Wooten]

Pic one is the mission module and CSM stack ready for TVI...


Pic two a cutaway of the same stack... VERY preliminary I'd say... looks like George C. Scott's apartment in "Dr. Strangelove" LOL


Pic three is the MM and CSM atop the Saturn V for launch... the MM took the place of the LM for the Venus mission...


Pic four is the TVI manuever plan-- enter highly elliptical 2 day orbit using the S-IVB, then do a perigee burn with the SPS in the CSM (to maximize the Oberth effect) to inject to Venus trajectory...


Pic five is the typical interplanetary trajectory that would have been followed for this mission... total trip time was 367 days for the longest mission...


Later! OL JR

And all three would have died from radiation poisoning from spending a year outside the Earth's magnetic field in the thin skinned Apollo hardware.

[Joe Wooten]

Randy, the biggest reason Apollo hardware and the moon were abandoned is that it was so very expensive. The equipment was designed to beat the Soviets to the moon, not to set up a sustainable colony there. A quote from one of the Apollo project managers was they were prepared to waste everything except time.

By the time Neil Armstrong had stepped foot on the surface NASA was well along on the path to becoming just another federal pork bureaucracy with absolutely no overriding interest in cheap access to space, as has been borne out from over 40 years of failed initiatives. Remember when the Freedom space station, now ISS was going to cost less than $15 billion? And the shuttle was going to fly 15-20 times a year at less than $1000/lb? Venture Star was going to be flying by now?

A better use of the money would have been to give prizes to entrepeneurs for cheaper boosters and orbital access. Space will never be conquered if there is no economic return from it, and if NASA and the federal government are in control of all manned activities there never will be. Congressional pork is just too highly prized as re-election bait to be let go of easily. Just look at the desperate rear-guard fighting by certain senators I am ashamed are mostly Republican to keep the shuttle derived jobs and pork in their states.

[luke strawwalker]

Randy, the biggest reason Apollo hardware and the moon were abandoned is that it was so very expensive. The equipment was designed to beat the Soviets to the moon, not to set up a sustainable colony there. A quote from one of the Apollo project managers was they were prepared to waste everything except time.

By the time Neil Armstrong had stepped foot on the surface NASA was well along on the path to becoming just another federal pork bureaucracy with absolutely no overriding interest in cheap access to space, as has been borne out from over 40 years of failed initiatives. Remember when the Freedom space station, now ISS was going to cost less than $15 billion? And the shuttle was going to fly 15-20 times a year at less than $1000/lb? Venture Star was going to be flying by now?

A better use of the money would have been to give prizes to entrepeneurs for cheaper boosters and orbital access. Space will never be conquered if there is no economic return from it, and if NASA and the federal government are in control of all manned activities there never will be. Congressional pork is just too highly prized as re-election bait to be let go of easily. Just look at the desperate rear-guard fighting by certain senators I am ashamed are mostly Republican to keep the shuttle derived jobs and pork in their states.

And they seem h3ll bent on repeating the same mistakes AGAIN!

Constellation was going to make Apollo look CHEAP by comparison... true it would increase capabilities (longer sorties with more astronauts) but then it was going to cost at least DOUBLE what Saturn V and Apollo lunar missions were going to cost, and that's conservative (and adjusted for inflation).

We're NO CLOSER to 'sustainable' space presence than we were before Apollo 4 flew... in fact we may be further from it.

If we're EVER going to see 'sustainable' spaceflight, it's going to come from companies like SpaceX that have an INCENTIVE to 'save a buck and do it cheaper' than from the gov't pork trough... that much is clear...

The point *I* find interesting is that WE HAD the technology to do this-- yes it could have been improved upon (for such things as radiation hardening) but THE HARDWARE WE HAD WAS CAPABLE OF PERFORMING THE MISSION... maybe a bit more 'riskily' than some would have preferred, but IT WAS POSSIBLE.

Now here we are 40 years later, with all the technological benefits and hindsight that provides, and CAN'T EVEN DECIDE HOW TO REPLICATE THOSE CAPABILITIES, OR HOW TO PAY TO RECREATE THEM.

Sorry but I find that not only sad but pathetic...

And the only thing NASA seems capable of producing is plans for design reference missions that are hopelessly complex and expensive and will never happen due to funding limitations, instead of looking at what they have and figuring out what they can REALISTICALLY AFFORD to do with it!

Later! OL JR :)

PS. I think the radiation problem is overblown-- of course it's a risk; even the Apollo guys new if they got caught on the moon or in transit to/from the Moon during a major CME/flare that they'd probably be dead or dying when they got back... but it's a risk they took.

Put a big honkin' water tank in one end of the hab and keep it pointed toward the sun, and you're pretty well safe from solar events... cosmic radiation comes from ALL directions and is a problem that's harder to avoid, but polyethylene shielding material is light and very good at reducing it to acceptable levels.

Like Zubrin asserts in his "Case for Mars" book, NASA seems more interested in getting funding for a multi dozens of billions dollar multidecadal program to "study" if microgravity and radiation is a problem (or not) on ISS rather than simply designing for artificial gravity or more radiation shielding in the first place... and in fact the only way they can 'discover' if these problems DO INDEED exist is to expose astronauts to these risks until it becomes a problem or proves not to be, just like guinea pigs...

But hey, it keeps everybody's pet project on the playing field and funded and keeps the gov't pork supply rolling on in...

[Bill]

The Saturn V would launch the S-IVB/MM/CSM stack into a circular parking orbit, then reignite to insert the stack into a 2 day 70,000 nm apogee 100 nm perigee highly elliptical orbit. During the coast to apogee, the CSM would dock with and extract the MM from the spent S-IVB, extend its solar panels and communications antennas, and start up its guidance platform, and then perform a checkout of the mated vehicles, then perform a trim manuever at apogee for final checkout of the SPS and MM guidance systems. The vehicle would then coast back down to 100 nm perigee, perform another burn of the SPS on the SM to gain another 3,000 fps of velocity, which would inject the spacecraft on Trans-Venus Injection trajectory. The vehicle would have about 150 days flight time to Venus, perform the flyby, and have another roughly 150 or so days flight time along the return trajectory. The SM would have to perform three midcourse corrections outbound and another three inbound, and would reenter Earth's atmosphere at 45,000 fps, about 10,000 fps faster than most lunar return velocities, which required beefing up the heat shield, which was the biggest mod necessary to the flight hardware for this mission.



There is the minor issue of how to pack 300 days worth of provisions into that small space...


Bill

[luke strawwalker]

There is the minor issue of how to pack 300 days worth of provisions into that small space...


Bill

Evidently they had it figured out... water would be recycled, and freeze dried food (mostly) I suppose...

I was shocked that the Delta-V requirements closed-- I would have thought on first blush that a full S-IVB in orbit would have been required to get the stack to the necessary velocity for a TVI manuever... the fact that they figured out how to do it with the S-IVB injecting into a high elliptical orbit going 1/3 of the way to the moon, then expending the stage, then using the SPS on the Apollo CSM for the remaining manuevers is pretty darn smart! I wouldn't have thought the SPS would have anywhere NEAR enough fuel for the job, but they even had a several hundred feet/sec performance reserve (left over fuel) after all the manuevers were accounted for, including 1,000 fps in trajectory correction burns performed in three corrections outbound and another three inbound on the return trip! That ain't bad! AND, that's figured with several thousand pounds of scientific gear in the MM... not bad at all!

I guess, though, that it's counterintuitive. Once you get the velocity to escape, where you actually go from there is beside the point and just a matter of the trajectory, though with interplanetary trajectories you DO have to take into account the solar velocity vectors and such necessary for a given trajectory to go from one planet to another once you leave the gravity field of the Earth and enter the sun's influence... That, and I think Venus is fairly easy to get to since it's closer to the sun. If you notice, the flight path actually swings out past Earth on the return leg before coming back in toward Earth for reentry... Basically to get to Venus you have to DROP in speed from the Earth's angular momentum around the Sun at it's orbital distance (every orbit has a velocity depending on it's distance from the gravity source). SO, basically, you have to inject to a trajectory that basically takes you out of Earth's gravity, in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION (or tangential to) from Earth's direction of travel around the sun, and time that so the trajectory intersects with Venus along the flight path. As I understand it anyway...

From what I've read, the Messenger mission to Mercury (which they presented some interesting findings on a couple days ago on NASA TV) was a pretty ambitious mission and pretty difficult to even get there-- to drop down that close to the sun to even get to Mercury, they basically have to do some "backwards slingshot" manuevers through tricky trajectory planning of planetary flybys (so the spacecraft actually 'slows down' in relation to the solar orbit speed and the planet 'speeds up' infinitesimally-- just the opposite of what Voyager did to "slingshot" out from Jupiter to Saturn to Uranus to Neptune, by using gravity to rob a little angular momentum from those planets, slowing them down infinitesimally in their orbit (and hence moving them infinitesimally closer to the sun by a tiny fraction of an inch) while gaining a terrific boost in speed...

Really interesting stuff when you get into orbital mechanics and trajectories... and it's above *my* pay grade! :D later! OL JR :)

[blackshire]

In his 1968 non-fiction book "The Promise of Space," Arthur C. Clarke described the Apollo Command/Service Modules and remarked with some astonishment:

"If only a lunar circumnavigation were intended--without landing--these two modules would suffice for the whole mission. (In fact, if it were not for food and air requirements, this combination would allow even a trip around Mars or Venus.)"

Elsewhere in the book, he discussed manned Mars and Venus flyby missions using Apollo hardware with extra living quarters. The target planet(s) would have been "studied from close range for many weeks, and from a distance of only a few hundred miles for several hours. Landing probes could also be dropped, to radio back information to the passing ship, or directly to Earth at a much lower rate. The flight [the Mars one, at least] would continue on through the inner asteroid belt, and the spacecraft would return to Earth after a voyage of a little less than two years, re-entering by atmospheric braking."

The Earth departure velocities of these Mars and Venus missions that Clarke described were in the range of 27,000 - 28,000 miles per hour. A particularly interesting mission opportunity (among several Mars and Venus flyby mission opportunities that he listed) was a December 1978 launch window that would have permitted flybys of both Venus *and* Mars. The Earth-Venus leg was 142 days, the Venus-Mars leg was 230 days, and the Mars-Earth return leg was 253 days, for a total mission duration of 625 days. This compared very favorably with the Mars-only flight windows of September 1975 (667 days), October 1977 (678 days), and November 1979 (686 days). The four Venus-only flight windows (June 1975 to April 1980) ranged between 359 days and 374 days in duration. Clarke wrote of the December 1978 Venus-Mars launch window that "There are a great many scientists who would very willingly give two years of their lives for a trip to both of our nearest neighbors in space, even though they would spend only a few hours in their vicinity."

In the chapter about orbital mechanics, he pointed out a curious (and very useful) fact: Even a slight excess velocity over the 7 miles per second Earth escape velocity will leave an interplanetary spacecraft with more excess velocity than one would expect from simply subtracting velocities, since the trajectories have to do with energies, not just velocities. The final velocity (relative to the Earth) of a spacecraft that reaches *exactly* 7 miles per second is 0 miles per second after escape (provided that the trajectory doesn't pass near the Moon). An interplanetary spaceship that reaches 8 miles per second will not have just 1 mile per second of excess velocity after escaping from Earth, but 4 miles per second! At 9 miles per second, the post-escape excess velocity is 5.5 miles per second; at 10 miles per second, a velocity of 7 miles per second remains after escaping from Earth.

Recent experiments in the United Kingdom succeeded in creating an artificial magnetosphere around a model spacecraft in a space environment simulation chamber. The experimenters installed a single circular loop of superconducting material at some distance from the model spacecraft, and the magnetosphere prevented charged particles from reaching the model at its center. The crew of an interplanetary spaceship could deploy one or more such superconducting hoops to protect themselves from cosmic and solar radiation.

I too am frustrated at NASA's tunnel-vision approach to (very slowly) developing the technologies required for manned interplanetary missions, which always seem to be 30 years in the future. I am glad that the Mars Society is conducting research on systems for generating centrifugal "artificial gravity," which NASA does not deign to investigate.

[luke strawwalker]

Recent experiments in the United Kingdom succeeded in creating an artificial magnetosphere around a model spacecraft in a space environment simulation chamber. The experimenters installed a single circular loop of superconducting material at some distance from the model spacecraft, and the magnetosphere prevented charged particles from reaching the model at its center. The crew of an interplanetary spaceship could deploy one or more such superconducting hoops to protect themselves from cosmic and solar radiation..

I've heard about this... it sounds promising... ("Shields UP, Mr. Sulu!" :D ) but in all fairness it's a LONG way from a lab test on a model to a functional deployed full-scale operational system, especially one light enough, with enough power, and reliable enough to be counted on upon an interplanetary spacecraft. Especially when you consider the less-than-a-snail's pace of modern spacecraft systems development... And basically I think the radiation problem is overhyped, DELIBERATELY, by NASA to justify huge dozen-billion dollar multi-decadal research programs, both on ISS and elsewhere... Polyethylene is an EXCELLENT light-weight super-tough "radiation shield" for galactic cosmic rays-- those heavy ions of iron and other heavy nuclei ejected from stellar cores in supernovas at velocities near the speed of light, which are particularly detrimental to human health because they shatter DNA in the cells when they hit it, causing cellular mutation (basically cancer genesis). It was discovered that aluminum and other metals are particularly BAD shielding choices because when they are struck by a high-energy cosmic ray particle nuclei, the nuclei is 'captured' but sends out a SPRAY of aluminum nuclei at substantial but somewhat lower velocities, like a blast of birdshot from a shotgun-- it's like trading a 9mm bullet heading for you for a peppering of birdshot. The aluminum nuclei are also highly penetrating, like the heavy cosmic ray nuclei, only slightly less so, BUT their far greater NUMBER makes them actually MORE dangerous! It was also discovered that lining the vehicle's pressure hull with a 1/4-1/2 inch thick layer of polyethylene or other certain other long-chain polymers provided considerable passive radiation shielding by absorbing the incoming nuclei, sorta like a bulletproof vest... Doesn't eliminate the problem, but it greatly reduces it. NASA stripped MOST of the radiation shielding out of Orion during the 'zero base vehicle' weight scrub when they were trying to get the weight down enough for Ares I to be able to launch it... how much of the shielding was put back afterwards I'm not sure, but I heard a lot of folks weren't very happy about it.


I too am frustrated at NASA's tunnel-vision approach to (very slowly) developing the technologies required for manned interplanetary missions, which always seem to be 30 years in the future. I am glad that the Mars Society is conducting research on systems for generating centrifugal "artificial gravity," which NASA does not deign to investigate.

Have you ever read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars"?? I picked it up at Half Price Books last year and it's an EXCELLENT read, even if some of his ideas have fallen out of favor or are a bit 'starry eyed' (I don't believe for one second Mars colonization will start soon after a Mars landing or even SHOULD, no more so than lunar colonization started after Apollo). He REALLY rips into NASA management about their approach to 'retiring risks' and 'microgravity health effects'... he was repeatedly shot down by upper level NASA management about his ideas for Mars trips with comments about "what about the health effects of microgravity for a year on the trip out there? We don't know what that'll do to the astronauts..." and he said, "well, lets spin the spacecraft to make artificial gravity!" and be promptly dismissed out of hand-- it's not the "right answer"... NASA management wants to take the "long road" to do HUGE multi-billion dollar study programs to 1) first even determine if there's a problem or issue at all, 2) define the nature of that problem or issue if one is found, 3) develop MULTIPLE mitigation strategies to address any issues or problems identified, 4) design, develop, and test the various mitigation methods and weigh them against each other... IOW, study, study, study... all the while demanding dozens to hundreds of millions for the studies, tests, and programs along the way, taking years to decades AT EACH STEP. Zubrin was especially critical about the 'radiation problem'. He showed mathematically that if you chose a crew in their late 40's to early 50's (which actually is the demographic of the most highly qualified scientists and engineers likely to become astronaut candidates for such a mission-- mid 30's "stick and rudder guys" from military test pilot programs aren't particularly needed anymore unlike the Mercury/Gemini days) that statistically, their risks of developing cancer induced by radiation cellular damage incurred on the mission is virtually identical (down in the noise) of the general population that age of equivalent health and demographic. IOW, yes there IS a SLIGHTLY higher risk, but it's virtually the same as anybody remaining on Earth! Yet, NASA INSISTS that it's a huge issue and MUST be studied on ISS for DECADES before we can even assess the true risk... for which Zubrin SLAMS them, because basically they're exposing various astronauts to the very conditions they have concerns about which could cause future illness or death, to simply find out if there IS a problem, rather than just flying the mission and taking the chance, and then seeing if it's a problem or not... most astronauts (at least in the Apollo days) had a saying, "better to buy the farm on a MISSION than in TRAINING"... Which is better?? Exposing dozens of astronauts to potentially health-damaging conditions over the course of a decadal study, or exposing a crew of 4-6 WHILE PERFORMING THE ACTUAL MISSION AND ACHIEVING THE GOAL and then determining if the problem even actually exists. Zubrin's argument is, use the "good enough" technologies (such as passive shielding we now have) and do the mission, and study the results-- if there's no problem, good-- what we have is 'good enough' and you've retired the risk... if not, you have the data you need to define the problem and 'skip ahead' to developing mitigation strategies with DATA IN HAND as to the true nature of the issue to be solved.

He has a point. Even such simple ideas as 'in-situ resource utilization', which Zubrin demonstrated with a small tabletop propellant plant using the Sabatier process with hydrogen (which would be brought from Earth in the lander) and reacted in a catalyst bed with Martian atmospheric C02 to produce oxygen and methane rocket fuel, is something that NASA wants to 'study' for decades before actually having a usable system in hand ready to go... The process has been demonstrated, and Zubrin suggested incorporating such a pilot subscale system into a functional spacecraft, such as a Mars lander, rover, whatever, to actually make propellants on the Martian surface as a 'proof of concept' (he even suggested using his tabletop model to create small quantities of propellants to prove the concept, followed by subscale tests on subsequent spacecraft, leading up to its use in a mission such as a Mars Sample Return mission where the ascender spacecraft would be fuelled from ISRU propellants manufactured on Mars from the residuals/extra hydrogen supply brought from Earth in the landing stage... All to no avail... NASA wants to make a billion dollar multidecadal development program out of it or they're not interested. Same thing with propellant depot technologies and other such 'enabling technologies' that NASA deems 'too risky' and demands enormous decadal programs to 'study'.

NASA has become the 'career college student' who spends decades in college studying and learning but never achieves anything-- merely study, study, study as a way of life... After all, if you DO end up proving on the first mission out that radiation or ISRU aren't a problem and can be easily done, well, you've just cheated yourself out of hundreds of millions of government grants to "study" the problem and more hundreds of millions on development programs to "study" the possible solutions and probably a billion in gov't money to a "design and development study" to produce a solution to whatever problem is found... at the VERY LEAST you've cheated yourself out of millions to "STUDY" the issue and determine, just as the first mission would have upon it's return, that THERE IS NO PROBLEM or our current understanding and mitigation strategies are completely sufficient presently and can be enhanced over time using data gathered FROM THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS instead of SIMULATED study conditions...

Is this any way to run a railroad (to the stars?) LOL:) Later! OL JR :)

[Randy]

Guys, I understand the main purpose of the 60's NASA, my dad worked at Redstone and the Cape during Jupiter and Apollo, I grew up hearing all the politics, expense, motivations of the times, etc.

What I'm saying is the next logical step would have been to establish a lunar base, go to the asteroids, a base on Mars. When you think of all the amazing things that came from overcoming the problems with just reaching the moon, how much more would have come from a sustained program with the above goals. Much has been learned from experiments during the shuttle program. I think we would have learned exponentially from a continued effort to reach Mars and make working in space a common thing/industry.

JR's posts make me wonder where we would be now. Using Apollo technology might seem silly now but it could have been a starting place 40 years ago.

I'm sure 500 years prior to NASA's existance someone in Italy was telling Isabella that Columbus didn't need to waste all that money exploring the world, establishing colonies, old Chris might even sail off the end of the world.

Of course we know now that Capt. Barbosa did go over the edge but he made it back too. :chuckle:

Randy
www.vernarockets.com

[blackshire]

I've heard about this... it sounds promising... ("Shields UP, Mr. Sulu!" :D ) but in all fairness it's a LONG way from a lab test on a model to a functional deployed full-scale operational system, especially one light enough, with enough power, and reliable enough to be counted on upon an interplanetary spacecraft. Especially when you consider the less-than-a-snail's pace of modern spacecraft systems development... And basically I think the radiation problem is overhyped, DELIBERATELY, by NASA to justify huge dozen-billion dollar multi-decadal research programs, both on ISS and elsewhere... -SNIP-I think it's worth testing, perhaps using a cheap unmanned spacecraft whose electronics are all off-the-shelf, non-radiation-hardened components. If active shielding works and is reliable, it would reduce the cost of the electronic components required for interplanetary spaceships. I still like passive polyethylene radiation shielding, though. The polyethylene shielding could even double as part of a spaceship's structure.Have you ever read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars"?? I picked it up at Half Price Books last year and it's an EXCELLENT read, even if some of his ideas have fallen out of favor or are a bit 'starry eyed' (I don't believe for one second Mars colonization will start soon after a Mars landing or even SHOULD, no more so than lunar colonization started after Apollo). He REALLY rips into NASA management about their approach to 'retiring risks' and 'microgravity health effects'... he was repeatedly shot down by upper level NASA management about his ideas for Mars trips with comments about "what about the health effects of microgravity for a year on the trip out there? We don't know what that'll do to the astronauts..." and he said, "well, lets spin the spacecraft to make artificial gravity!" and be promptly dismissed out of hand-- it's not the "right answer"-SNIP-I haven't read that particular book of Dr. Zubrin's, but I've read other books and articles by him. I particularly like his support of nuclear thermal rocket propulsion, which would make interplanetary travel a practical (and perhaps commercially viable) proposition. Even with chemical propulsion, though, Mars orbit/Deimos & Phobos landing manned missions are feasible, especially if aerocapture is used to brake into circum-Martian orbit. If SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy launch vehicle works as planned, maybe Elon Musk, Bob Zubrin, and Bob Bigelow could upstage NASA with such a Mars mission?

[blackshire]

I just found this design study (performed during the pre-Skylab AAP [Apollo Applications Program] years) for a manned Venus flyby mission (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby ) that was proposed for launch in 1973. This "minimalist" interplanetary spaceship (which required only one Saturn V launch) consisted of an Apollo CSM (Command/Service Module) combination that would have separated from the S-IVB third stage in low Earth orbit, then docked to a habitation module atop the S-IVB. After a thorough checkout of the spaceship's systems, the S-IVB would then have re-ignited for the TVI (Trans-Venus Injection) burn. The S-IVB would have carried Skylab-type solar panels to provide electrical power for the spaceship.

The abort mode for this mission was interesting. The S-IVB's TVI burn was an "eyeballs-out" maneuver (the crew members would have been pushed *out* of their couches against their seat straps instead of into them, because they would have been facing backwards), which was "sporty" enough by itself. If, however, anything went wrong during the TVI burn, the crew would have had a short (~1 hour) abort window in which to undock the CSM from the S-IVB/habitation module and then fire the Service Module's propulsion system in a retro-maneuver to nullify most of the TVI burn's velocity and place the CSM in a highly-elliptical Earth orbit, from which the crew could have returned to Earth in two or three days. If the crew had missed this abort window, they would have been committed to an interplanetary voyage.

Between SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy launch vehicle and their Dragon spacecraft (as well as the Russian Soyuz-TM spacecraft) and Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable habitation modules, the components exist (or are in development) to "cobble together" similar interplanetary spaceships. While a manned planetary flyby mission isn't as "sexy" and exciting as a manned planetary orbital or landing mission, it would--like Apollo 8 did for the lunar landing program--give a huge boost to morale and experience by actually *going* somewhere beyond the Moon.

[wilsotr]

And basically I think the radiation problem is overhyped, DELIBERATELY, by NASA to justify huge dozen-billion dollar multi-decadal research programs, both on ISS and elsewhere...

Right. And JFK was shot by the CIA to keep him from spilling the beans about the plan for FAKE moon landings which NASA dreamed up in partnership with DEFENSE CONTRACTORS so the public wouldn't notice the VIETNAM WAR! Gotta love a good conspiracy.

[Randy]

[QUOTE=wilsotr] And JFK was shot by the CIA to keep him from spilling the beans QUOTE]

Vietnam? :confused: I thought everyone knew it was to keep him quiet about the aliens at AREA 51.

Randy
www.vernarockets.com

[luke strawwalker]

I think it's worth testing, perhaps using a cheap unmanned spacecraft whose electronics are all off-the-shelf, non-radiation-hardened components. If active shielding works and is reliable, it would reduce the cost of the electronic components required for interplanetary spaceships. I still like passive polyethylene radiation shielding, though. The polyethylene shielding could even double as part of a spaceship's structure.

Oh, yeah, I'm not saying NOT to pursue that technology-- I think it's a good idea and certainly worth investigation and testing...

I'm just saying WAITING on it, putting it on the 'critical path' to success and delaying the effort until everything risky is retired is counterproductive...

It's like saying, "well, let's wait another 100 years to try a Mars mission, after all, by then we'll have the ENTERPRISE (Capt. Kirk's) and doing a Mars mission will be ever so simple then... "

Later! OL JR :)

[blackshire]

Oh, yeah, I'm not saying NOT to pursue that technology-- I think it's a good idea and certainly worth investigation and testing...

I'm just saying WAITING on it, putting it on the 'critical path' to success and delaying the effort until everything risky is retired is counterproductive...

It's like saying, "well, let's wait another 100 years to try a Mars mission, after all, by then we'll have the ENTERPRISE (Capt. Kirk's) and doing a Mars mission will be ever so simple then... "

Later! OL JR :)I like the old "storm cellar" idea--a section of the interplanetary spaceship would be (passively) shielded against cosmic and solar radiation, and the crew could retreat to the cellar during solar flares. It could even double as their living and sleeping quarters, which would reduce their total radiation doses during the mission.

[luke strawwalker]

I just found this design study (performed during the pre-Skylab AAP [Apollo Applications Program] years) for a manned Venus flyby mission (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby ) that was proposed for launch in 1973. This "minimalist" interplanetary spaceship (which required only one Saturn V launch) consisted of an Apollo CSM (Command/Service Module) combination that would have separated from the S-IVB third stage in low Earth orbit, then docked to a habitation module atop the S-IVB. After a thorough checkout of the spaceship's systems, the S-IVB would then have re-ignited for the TVI (Trans-Venus Injection) burn. The S-IVB would have carried Skylab-type solar panels to provide electrical power for the spaceship.

The abort mode for this mission was interesting. The S-IVB's TVI burn was an "eyeballs-out" maneuver (the crew members would have been pushed *out* of their couches against their seat straps instead of into them, because they would have been facing backwards), which was "sporty" enough by itself. If, however, anything went wrong during the TVI burn, the crew would have had a short (~1 hour) abort window in which to undock the CSM from the S-IVB/habitation module and then fire the Service Module's propulsion system in a retro-maneuver to nullify most of the TVI burn's velocity and place the CSM in a highly-elliptical Earth orbit, from which the crew could have returned to Earth in two or three days. If the crew had missed this abort window, they would have been committed to an interplanetary voyage.

Between SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy launch vehicle and their Dragon spacecraft (as well as the Russian Soyuz-TM spacecraft) and Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable habitation modules, the components exist (or are in development) to "cobble together" similar interplanetary spaceships. While a manned planetary flyby mission isn't as "sexy" and exciting as a manned planetary orbital or landing mission, it would--like Apollo 8 did for the lunar landing program--give a huge boost to morale and experience by actually *going* somewhere beyond the Moon.

Yes, this mission mode had similar abort modes, which I found interesting since it already had expended a considerable amount of the SM's fuel during the second TVI burn after the S-IVB had been expended. The abort window was about the same as well... It's in the summary.

I think flyby's and maybe, just maybe, if we can get the propulsion necessary, orbital missions are the only planetary missions we're likely to see in the next 30 years or so at the least... the EDL (entry, descent, and landing) problems are the BIG MONEY items on Mars missions-- and as already said, there's really NO REASON to go to the surface of Venus, and if one did it'd quite likely be a one-way trip! Once you get escape capability, your 95% of your way to just about anywhere outside Earth, propulsion wise... at least for flyby's... even orbital missions are modestly doable if you have 1) long term storage capable propulsion, and 2) either sufficient propulsion for propulsive braking or aerobraking to reduce the propellant requirements to what's needed for TEI from Martian (or Venus) orbit.

Personally I just don't see a lot of value in going to Venus other than to prove that *we can do it*. Scientifically, there's really nothing an orbiting crew can do there that can't be accomplished just as well with terrestrially controlled automated probes/orbiters. Unless of course you could somehow obtain funding for the "Venus blimp" idea that would have the capability of lowering hardened instrument packages down to the Venusian surface, either as 'draggers' or lowering them to take readings, and then retracting them up into the upper atmosphere before they fry... Local control of such a mission from Venusian orbit might be interesting, but it'd require a fleet of communication satellites, (well, more than one anyway) to emulate the TDRSS system in Earth orbit to maintain comms between the manned orbiter and the blimp probes... None of this would be cheap, but it could be done step-by-step to spread the costs out...

Going to Venus seems more risky, even though the trip time is shorter, because in going closer to the Sun the inverse square law is working against you (the closer you are to the source of radiation, the more intense it is). That's good for solar power since you're getting more power output but it's not good when it comes to CME and solar flare radiation events which could fry your crew, but if you can keep the water/propellant tanks and most of the spacecraft mass between the crew and the source of the radiation (the sun) you can reduce the exposure quite a bit... All this is getting weaker as you go toward Mars, and you have the benefit of more warning time since the Earth is closer to the Sun than Mars and the outbound spacecraft, which is the opposite at Venus...

Such a manned orbiter-only or Phobos landing mission seems MUCH more scientifically interesting to me, because of the possibility of direct teleoperation of surface rovers from Phobos. Because Phobos is tidally locked, and quite close to Mars, from what I've read as I understand it, if you land at the point closest to Mars, Mars would be directly overhead at 'zenith' and occupy about 40% of the sky... IOW acting like a giant "umbrella" and shielding the surface hab from quite a bit of incoming GCR particles... If you bring along soil moving equipment or can land in a deep crater, the sides will produce even more shielding from the remaining "sky" source of GCR particles... or you can cover the hab with soil or make a ring around the hab to help shield it... and of course the gravity is EXTREMELY low on Phobos due its small size... with the addition of a few relay comsats, you could maintain continuous control directly over surface instrument packages mounted on rovers and control them in realtime, getting the data back in realtime (without the 20 minute + signal lag time from Earth). That alone would make "telepresence" astronauts almost as productive as actually having boots on the ground, without having to spend money on the thorny and expensive EDL problem and surface habs...

LateR! OL JR :)

[luke strawwalker]

Right. And JFK was shot by the CIA to keep him from spilling the beans about the plan for FAKE moon landings which NASA dreamed up in partnership with DEFENSE CONTRACTORS so the public wouldn't notice the VIETNAM WAR! Gotta love a good conspiracy.

Always can count on wilson to provide the koolaid and snarky comments to go with it...

I said nothing of the sort, and you know it. I said it was OVERHYPED, NOT that it was not a problem AT ALL.

I don't know why I bother even commenting with you... you just seem to ENJOY being a total jerk and twisting stuff around...

Tell me how I'm wrong... the Russians have been studying microgravity health effects and LEO space radiation exposure since the early 70's on the Salyuts and Mir... we studied it on Skylab, then on the shuttle for decades, then on Mir, and now on ISS for decades... WHEN is NASA going to quit STUDYING and actually GO to Mars...

Frankly if we need a half-century or more of health data before we can even contemplate sending a crew, then we have NO BUSINESS sending a manned mission to Mars... just send robots and call it good!

Sorry, but we have a saying in the country-- $h!t or get off the pot! LOL:)

Later! OL JR :)

PS. flame away wilson-- I'm putting you on "ignore"... :D

[luke strawwalker]

I like the old "storm cellar" idea--a section of the interplanetary spaceship would be (passively) shielded against cosmic and solar radiation, and the crew could retreat to the cellar during solar flares. It could even double as their living and sleeping quarters, which would reduce their total radiation doses during the mission.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea too... put it in the middle of the water tank and there you go-- especially the sleeping quarters, toilet, and whatever backup controls are necessary-- and an adequate food supply.

later! OL JR :)

[wilsotr]

Always can count on wilson to provide the koolaid and snarky comments to go with it... I said nothing of the sort, and you know it.

Certainly didn't take you long to start the name-calling. I'll leave it to others to interpret what you actually said ... your posts are a matter of record.

Tell me how I'm wrong... the Russians have been studying microgravity health effects and LEO space radiation exposure since the early 70's on the Salyuts and Mir... we studied it on Skylab, then on the shuttle for decades, then on Mir, and now on ISS for decades...

Which ought to tell you it's a difficult problem with no easy solution. Perhaps you should look at it that way instead of assuming those who've dedicated their lives to studying it are just idiots, or part of some grand conspiracy. And the problem is way bigger than radiation, by the way ... has to do with the loss of bone density and muscle mass, critical issues for long duration crews to which there are, as yet, no good solutions.

[blackshire]

-SNIP- Such a manned orbiter-only or Phobos landing mission seems MUCH more scientifically interesting to me, because of the possibility of direct teleoperation of surface rovers from Phobos. Because Phobos is tidally locked, and quite close to Mars, from what I've read as I understand it, if you land at the point closest to Mars, Mars would be directly overhead at 'zenith' and occupy about 40% of the sky... IOW acting like a giant "umbrella" and shielding the surface hab from quite a bit of incoming GCR particles... If you bring along soil moving equipment or can land in a deep crater, the sides will produce even more shielding from the remaining "sky" source of GCR particles... or you can cover the hab with soil or make a ring around the hab to help shield it... and of course the gravity is EXTREMELY low on Phobos due its small size... with the addition of a few relay comsats, you could maintain continuous control directly over surface instrument packages mounted on rovers and control them in realtime, getting the data back in realtime (without the 20 minute + signal lag time from Earth). That alone would make "telepresence" astronauts almost as productive as actually having boots on the ground, without having to spend money on the thorny and expensive EDL problem and surface habs...Throw in Deimos (making it a "three-world tour," even if it involves a tele-operated unmanned Deimos lander/"hopper"/sample-return probe), and you've sold me! Being able to drive tele-operated rovers up the slopes of the huge volcanoes (imagine the view from the 17 mile-high summit of Olympus Mons, looking across its 40 mile-wide summit crater and at the plains far below!) and along the floor of Valles Marineris would enable much quicker and more detailed areological fieldwork to be accomplished.

A manned Phobos base located at the moon's sub-Mars point (where Mars would be at the zenith, as you described) would permit excellent photographic and meteorological coverage of Mars' equatorial and temperate regions (and an unmanned scientific package landed at the sub-Mars point on more distant Deimos would provide global coverage of the planet), and the Phobos base would also have another important use. It could be a collection point and laboratory for examining Mars surface samples brought back up to circum-Martian orbit by small, unmanned sample-return spacecraft. In the event that Mars harbors micro-organisms that would be dangerous to Earth life, it would be preferable if that discovery was made on Phobos instead of on Earth. Also:

Here are links (see: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=manned+planetary+flybys&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=manned+planetary+flybys&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=eb878a5eb62da218&biw=771&bih=373 ) to several studies of manned planetary flyby missions. Many of them are discussed on the "Beyond Apollo" blog (see: http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/11/triple-planet-manned-flybys-1967.html ).

[blackshire]

Here (in PDF form) is David S.F. Portree's book "Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950 - 2000," NASA Monographs in Aerospace History Series, Number 21, February 2001 (see: http://history.nasa.gov/monograph21/humans_to_Mars.htm ). It covers all of the proposed manned Mars flyby, orbiter, and landing missions.

[Randy]

Here (in PDF form) is David S.F. Portree's book "Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950 - 2000," NASA Monographs in Aerospace History Series, Number 21, February 2001 (see: http://history.nasa.gov/monograph21/humans_to_Mars.htm ). It covers all of the proposed manned Mars flyby, orbiter, and landing missions.

That's great but we all kow they haven't gone because the Martians won't grant permission for them to land. :eek:

Randy
www.vernarockets.com

[blackshire]

That's great but we all kow they haven't gone because the Martians won't grant permission for them to land. :eek:

Randy
www.vernarockets.com...And they have a good reason (from their point of view) for denying said landing permission:

FROM: http://www.spacekb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/amateur-astronomy/24827/Astro-trivia-Pioneer-10-not-the-furthest-man-made-object

Dan Birchall - 18 Feb 2010 07:30 GMT
> From Earth. In 1958, the U.S. fired an Aerobee rocket to the top of the
> atmosphere, [which] then fired a shaped charge loaded with pellets which fired
> outward at 33,000 mph [see: http://utenti.multimania.it/paoloulivi/aerobee.html
]. They are still traveling.

Mr. Birchall replied:

"So our first "hello" to the universe was basically a shotgun blast.
Great, just great. No wonder Marvin the Martian was building that
explosive space demodulator."

I imagine that *would* have made Marvin "very angry indeed!" :-)

[blackshire]

I just came across a computer animation (see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA_tdIKu-HQ ) of a proposed October 31, 1973 - December 1, 1974 manned Venus flyby mission (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby ) that would have used the Apollo/Saturn V hardware--an Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) docked to a small Mission Module (MM) mounted atop a "wet workshop" S-IVB, which would have provided yet more living space and supply space for the three-man crew.

Looking at China's Tiangong-1 space station (which is already being prepared to be launched this October, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_1 ) and their Shenzhou spacecraft, it isn't hard to imagine them using these two vehicles--with suitable modifications and an Earth-escape upper stage--for manned Venus and/or Mars flyby missions.

[Bill]

Looking at China's Tiangong-1 space station (which is already being prepared to be launched this October, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_1 ) and their Shenzhou spacecraft, it isn't hard to imagine them using these two vehicles--with suitable modifications and an Earth-escape upper stage--for manned Venus and/or Mars flyby missions.


This would depend on whether they are more interested in creating a real capability to go mine the moon or Mars or putting little stunts into the record book that neither the Soviets(Russians) or Americans have claimed.


Bill

[blackshire]

This would depend on whether they are more interested in creating a real capability to go mine the moon or Mars or putting little stunts into the record book that neither the Soviets(Russians) or Americans have claimed.It's still pretty early in their program to assess which of those is their goal. Closer to home, they could take a step toward both goals by using modified Shenzhou spacecraft to perform manned circumlunar flights similar to the Soviets' unmanned-but-human-capable Zond circumlunar missions (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond ). Such Zond-type lunar flights would give the Chinese useful experience with manned deep-space travel (which would serve as a first--if modest--stepping-stone to a Moon/Mars/asteroid mining capability) while also scoring propaganda points at home and abroad (it would silently shout: "You Americans can't go any farther than low Earth orbit anymore, but *we* can!").