NASA Planning for Mars

Cited: NewsDaily

According to Mars programs leads scientists it will take 5 years beyond NASA’s current budget forecast to get humans to Mars because it will require medical research on the International Space Station through at least the year 2020. A $100 billion project to extend the life of the International Space Station is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction funded by the 16 nations was surprised by the presidential panel reviewing the US human space program. The team’s report was not expected to be publicly disclosed until mid-to-late September.

The panel also said NASA’s $18 billion annual budget, about half of which is spent on human space projects, falls about $3 billion a year short for Constellation, the moon-and-beyond exploration initiative NASA plans after it retires the space shuttle and station programs.

“NASA needs the ISS,” program scientist Julie Robinson said. “A six-month stay on the space station is going to be the best analog we’re ever going to have for a six-month microgravity transit to Mars in the future.”

Scientists looking to develop countermeasures for radiation exposure, bone loss and other effects of long-duration stays in space estimate they will need to keep the station operating until at least 2020 to ensure “that next step beyond low-Earth orbit (will be) a safe step for humankind,” Robinson said.

NASA plans to spend about $2.5 billion a year for space station operations through 2015. Ending it just five years after its completion would rankle U.S. partners Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, which have invested heavily in the program and are looking for payoffs, members of the Human Space Flight Plans Committee said during public hearings.

Subcommittee chair Sally Ride, a former astronaut, said her group found widespread support for continuing, and even enhancing, the station program into 2016 and beyond.

“We didn’t start off with that perspective,” Ride said. “We don’t think that the deorbit of ISS in 2016 makes sense.”

While the NASA and the White House begin examining the panel’s recommendations, a 13-member joint station-shuttle crew will soon begin unloading more than seven tons of new laboratory equipment, supplies and spare parts.

Several astronauts aboard the shuttle Discovery arrived at the space station for a nine-day stay. The crew planned to attach the shuttles Italian-built cargo pod onto the station so that items could be unpacked. That cargo pod contains 2 new research facilities, a freezer, a spare oxygen generator, a 2nd treadmill and a fifth berth for the station’s newly expanded 6-person crew. The outpost will receive the last bedroom that is scheduled to arrive next year sometime.

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My Take: I think it is about time! They have been doing nothing but talking since they stopped the race to the moon and the Apollo program. All they have been doing is putting all kinds of gadgets into space that are surrounding the planet. I just wonder how many of those gadgets are military and pointed at the Earth.

There are so many rumors and conspiracy nuts that have been putting down the space program for so long, it is good to hear that something is actually going to happen. However, if the civilian population were able to do something in the space race, maybe more would be happening. The government has a monopoly on everything that goes into space.

I would love to see a nongovernmental agency start send people into space. I think the population of the earth would get a little bit more out of it. Of course, it would probably cost the average person more money to benefit from the race, but they would at least know what was going on.

I can just imagine a concert being held in space. I would think they would use one of the modular, lightweight, portable performance EZ stage platforms with seating risers and accessories for the stage. They probably would not have to worry about guardrail carts, but would have to have an IBC guardrail to keep people in one place instead of having them floating all over.

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