Subject:
         Save Mars Direct??
   Date:
         Sat, 06 Feb 1999 10:05:02 -0800
   From:
         David Anderman <davida@cwo.com>
     To:
         (Recipient list suppressed)

     A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally posted a message to the Mars Society list server about a real problem with Mars Direct - that NASA has quietly pulled In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), propellant production on the surface of Mars, out of the '05 Mars Sample Return Mission. And, I posed the question: if ISRU is perceived by NASA as being too risky for a robotic mission in '05, then when does it become safe enough for a human flight?

     Since ISRU is the key to Mars Direct, it would seem that NASA is losing confidence not just in ISRU but the entire Mars Direct mission architecture that makes human flight to Mars in our lifetime possible.

     I received hundreds of very interesting messages back. People told me all sorts of contradictory things: that ISRU is not being dropped from the '05 mission; that ISRU equipment is not scalable to make it useful for a small mission like the sample return; that some ISRU experiments are being flown on earlier missions; that ISRU is so mundane a technology that NASA isn't going to bother to test it on the surface of Mars; and that NASA is too risk adverse to use ISRU at all.

     Here's the real scoop: ISRU *is* being dropped from the '05 mission. ISRU *is* scalable, and small Sabatier reactors have been built and operated; and the small experiments on the earlier missions don't really buy much for Mars Direct. Even worse, the baseline '05 mission, using storable standard propellants, can't get the sample back to Earth for several years, using a not-yet-funded rendezvous in Mars orbit to transfer the sample to an Earth return spacecraft - precisely the antithesis of Mars Direct. Since the Sample Return mission was originally proposed on the basis that ISRU would make the mission affordable, NASA's quietly dropping ISRU from the baseline is really a bait-and-switch.

     NASA's robotic Mars program is degenerating from serving as pathfinders for a humans to Mars settlement program to a series of stunts du jour that generate headlines, but don't do what is necessary to get people to Mars.

     However, there is hope. This is *not* a spectator sport, where NASA gets to do what it wants. When activists have focused on pressuring NASA to move in the right direction, there have been successes. I believe that it is possible to convince NASA to re-incorporate ISRU back into the '05 mission.

     Next month, ProSpace, a not-for-profit lobbying group, is sending activists to Washington to support its agenda, which includes commercial space development and Cheap Access to Space (their URL is: http://www.prospace.org). ProSpace will brief just about every Senate and House staff offices on critical space issues, and has conducted hundreds of such briefings in past years. However, ProSpace has *never* talked about Mars in its previous - and very successful - congressional campaigns. I believe that it is possible to convince ProSpace to put this ISRU issue - saving Mars Direct - in this year's campaign, if enough Mars supporters take the time to send a note to ProSpace at: prospace@prospace.org, asking them to help save Mars Direct by putting ISRU back in the '05 mission.