Some political and economic challenges affecting Mars Direct involve the budget NASA has for the missions.
The cost to send humans to Mars is around $30-50 billion (for private companies it is estimated to be $5billions). NASA’s budget each year is approximately $18billions so the corporation cannot afford to go to Mars alone (as they have to distribute this budget to their other formal missions). They will be looking towards international partnerships and cooperation, unless major disruptive technology comes to the way to make it viable.
Therefore, by cooperating with the right international, industrial and intergovernmental partnerships the Mars Direct mission will be possible. Although all organizations taking part in this mission would …show more content…
- The priority for human spaceflight will be Mars for the next three decades.
- Also, the priority in human exploration of the space will have to be inclined into making Mars Direct work.
- They will keep sending robotic precursor missions to Mars to succeed in human missions to the Red Planet.
- They will use the International Space Station.
The main reason for the last point is the success for this international mission (the ISS), which is hold by strong agreements and international treaties. Also, the ISS is a great way to imitate possible problems that astronauts could face in Mars, as well as using the orbiting laboratory and try parts of the mission to go to this planet.
The levels of federal spending that NASA used for their missions were no longer viable for the population, as the Cold War and a major oil crisis came in the way. The United States government cut down NASA’s budget, from five percent of the federal budget to less than one percent today. NASA was forced to limit their selves to research and scientific missions (including the Space Shuttle program, robotic probes and satellites) without taking humans beyond Low Earth …show more content…
This consisted in sending astronauts to the Moon again to create a base there to ultimately send humans to Mars.
NASA Administrator, Richard Truly, initiated a study of the options to achieve these goals and came up with the “90-Day Study”. The study estimated that this proposal would cost $500billion.
With the cost being so high, the government contacted the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate it and search other alternatives in technology as well as other approaches to carry on with the goals. However they did not find any other method less expensive and the White House did not support the plan for financial issues; even though President Bush sought international partnerships, the plan was still too expensive. Unfortunately human exploration was abandoned and they kept exploring space through space science robotic exploration.
SEI did not worked as planned, but this initiative became a powerful idea generator that turned up into the creation of Mars Direct. This was possible because Zubrin and David Baker asked their manager, Martin Marietta, for some latitude to craft their own humans to Mars mission, without the SEI
The cost to send humans to Mars is around $30-50 billion (for private companies it is estimated to be $5billions). NASA’s budget each year is approximately $18billions so the corporation cannot afford to go to Mars alone (as they have to distribute this budget to their other formal missions). They will be looking towards international partnerships and cooperation, unless major disruptive technology comes to the way to make it viable.
Therefore, by cooperating with the right international, industrial and intergovernmental partnerships the Mars Direct mission will be possible. Although all organizations taking part in this mission would …show more content…
- The priority for human spaceflight will be Mars for the next three decades.
- Also, the priority in human exploration of the space will have to be inclined into making Mars Direct work.
- They will keep sending robotic precursor missions to Mars to succeed in human missions to the Red Planet.
- They will use the International Space Station.
The main reason for the last point is the success for this international mission (the ISS), which is hold by strong agreements and international treaties. Also, the ISS is a great way to imitate possible problems that astronauts could face in Mars, as well as using the orbiting laboratory and try parts of the mission to go to this planet.
The levels of federal spending that NASA used for their missions were no longer viable for the population, as the Cold War and a major oil crisis came in the way. The United States government cut down NASA’s budget, from five percent of the federal budget to less than one percent today. NASA was forced to limit their selves to research and scientific missions (including the Space Shuttle program, robotic probes and satellites) without taking humans beyond Low Earth …show more content…
This consisted in sending astronauts to the Moon again to create a base there to ultimately send humans to Mars.
NASA Administrator, Richard Truly, initiated a study of the options to achieve these goals and came up with the “90-Day Study”. The study estimated that this proposal would cost $500billion.
With the cost being so high, the government contacted the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate it and search other alternatives in technology as well as other approaches to carry on with the goals. However they did not find any other method less expensive and the White House did not support the plan for financial issues; even though President Bush sought international partnerships, the plan was still too expensive. Unfortunately human exploration was abandoned and they kept exploring space through space science robotic exploration.
SEI did not worked as planned, but this initiative became a powerful idea generator that turned up into the creation of Mars Direct. This was possible because Zubrin and David Baker asked their manager, Martin Marietta, for some latitude to craft their own humans to Mars mission, without the SEI