Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: The Earth & LEO As Test Bed.

Hello Is There Anything In There?
Mark Eby — (archived)

Once again how does going to the Moon as opposed to Earth and LEO based research solve these issues? The only solution of possible relevance to your comments is not going to Mars because of time related risks. In that case Mars is simply not a destination not a futher point on a path including the Moon.

Your Moon rescue scenarios abound with conjectures without evaluation of their probability of occurence, positive outcome, or relative importance in overall mission risk.

Your abort option conjecture is easily dismissed by actually counting the aborted misioins and taking into account the comments already made on it. I don't know the details on Gemini 8, but you seem ignorant of the true significance of Apollo 13 if you think 3 days is some reliable safety measure.

It is also easily dismissed by any real technical understanding of the energies involved. Reentry and launch involve massive changes in energy states. If those releases fail to be controlled in the approriate manner they have far more destructive potential than other spaceflight risks.

A less energetic loss of air or build up of CO2/CO is just as fatal but far less destructive. They are also stand more chance of early detection and corrective action as was the case with Apollo 13. With a much larger supply the risk could easily be reduced that such a large portion of O2 would be lost.

Proposed Mars missions do include free return trajectories, but I doubt someone like you would have bothered to research this detail given your ignorance about ISRU plans. Sure there are more options with a lunar mission, but yet again going to the Moon first won't change the laws of physics.

This whole attitude of do the Moon first because it's safer is ass backwards if it doesn't actually reduce the risk going to Mars. This is especially true when real risk reductions can be made at cheaper costs through testing elsewhere.

Regards,
Mark

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