Inspiration Mars Briefing

The Inspiration Mars press briefing has started at the Nat. Press club

Miles O'Brien intro:

• Mars flyby at 100 miles from surface
• No technical or financial showstoppers
• January 2018
• Anniversary of Apollo 8 and Magellen's voyage around the world
• Intros the panel members

[Update: Here's a video of the briefing:

]

Dennis Tito:

• 2 person, man and woman mission to Mars
• Not Tito, even if he were 30 years younger. Selection criteria too high
• Will be presenting the IEEE paper on the flyby mission design
• Decided to do the briefing to give background to the paper
• Been lots of progress on unmanned space missions
• Not much progress on manned space exploration
• No manned mission beyond LEO
• No NASA mission befor 2030s. Tito will be in 90s and doesn't want to wait that long
• Spaceflight is complex and a lot to learn
• Need missions in between to gain experience in multiple areas, e.g. human factors, before a Mars landing mission.
• Started working on orbital trajectories to the Moon,
• Worked on a Mars flyby when he worked at JPL in the early 1960s
• Found an old paper showing Mars mission time lengths.Saw 4 points significantly below most other times
• 2018 was one of those points. Next opportunity not till 2031
• 501-day free return Mars flyby mission
• Jan. 2018 to May 2019
• No propulsive maneuvers required
• Hired a team of experts to study the mission concept in detail
• Spent 3 months on it, resulting in the paper
• Set up Inspiration Mars Foundation
• Not a commercial project. Tito will come out a lot poorer.
• Signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA
• Will be coming into earth's atmosphere at much higher return speed than ever before
• Will work with NASA Ames on this.
• Funding is another challenge
• Doesn't think it will be a real difficult challenge to raise the money.
• Will raise it from private individuals and organizations, sell data to NASA, media rights, etc
• Tito will fund it for next two years.
• Don't have a cost number right now.
• Won't be cheap but comparable to LEO misson not to Mars landing
• No showstoppers
• On tight schedule and working on it now.

O'Brien intros Taber MacCallum

• Paragon SDC has been involved in many life support systems projects for a long time
• But got a surprise when Dennis called and described his concept. Was skeptical.
• After discussing all the issues and arguing, they decided to do a study
• A bare bones Lewis and Clark style misson
• Minimize automation.
• Human tended systems
• Need at least two people. Tito wanted man and woman
• Have a baseline system with the ISS
• Under contract to build a protoype system and test it.
• Recycle water, CO2 back to oxygen, etc.
• Slide shows picture with a capsule attached to inflatable habitat (still looking at rigid habitats as well)
• 1200 cubic feet volume, 600 cubic feet living space
• 10 tons - about half for life support
• Existence proof with Falcon Heavy. No contact with SpaceX except to ask for confirmation of the online numbers for the FH.
• Good cooperation with NASA
• Will reimburse NASA
• Has been a tremendously good experience working with NASA
• Liviing in a time when more space craft and launch systems are being developed than ever before
• Claims a SLS will be needed for manned surface mission.
• Reads a letter from 10 [6] year old who sent $10 and said this was his Apollo program

Jonathan Clark

• Loves challenges
• Commercial, academia and govt partnership
• Keep the crew alive for year and a half
• 100 person years of experience in micro g
• Know people can survive for 1.5 years in micro-g
• Radiation in deep space a big challenge
• Personalized approach.
• Taylor-make treatments to reduce effects of rad
• Rad shielding ideas
• Expect to keep below career limit for rad dosage.
• Tough but not a showstopper

Jayne Poynter

• Will be a great honor for the crew to fly by Mars but will be a great ordeal for them
• In micro-g the sense of volume will be somewhat greater.
• 3000 lbs of dyhydrated food
• The crew will be really busy.
• Hours of exercise every day
• Must maintain their life support systems
• Decades of experience at NASA and industry in life support systems
• Have a baseline system design that closes
• Seeking simplicity in the system - brings robustness
• No abort scenario. Once they leave earth orbit, they are committed to the whole trip
• One Russian cosmonaut in space for 435 days
• Wintering over in Antarctica.
• Not easy to deal with isolated environments. Behaviorial issues can arise.
• Discusses Biosphere II experience
• Endure mood swings, depression, conflicts, etc.
• External support - pyschological support from ground
• Must maintain an upbeat view in the face of adversity
• Being in Biosphere II with Taber, her husband, was very important
• Great to share together the positive aspects of the experience.
• So important that a couple go together on this Mars mission.
• Important to have a man and woman to represent humanity.
• Important for inspiring both boys and girls.
• Everyone will be able to participate in the mission
• A top goal of the mission is to inspire excitement about science, engineering, and exploration.

Nancy Conrad and June Scobee of Challenger Center introduced

• Nancy:
• Talks about Pete Conrad going to the Moon and landing on the Ocean of Storms
• Lauds this project for its potential education impact
• Need to leave a better country to our children and to leave better children for our country.
• June:
• Thanks Tito for this project
• Students have been flying missions to the Moon and Mars for many years
• Photos from spacecraft inspire one to look
• Need inspiration to do.
• Tito is filling the inspiration gap
• Hands on engagement is key to learning
• Invites Tito to a Challenger Center to experience a Mars mission

Diane Simpson (Women in Aerospace)

• Describes the aspirations of the organization
• See this mission as very uplifting, especially following the retirement of the Shuttle
• Thanks Tito for this project

Ellliot Pulham (Space Foundation)

• This mission will propel technology and space development forward
• A pioneering project

Q&A:

• AP: How to do this mission in such a short time with no launcher and spacecraft chosen?
  • Tito: Saturn V first unmanned test just a couple of years before first manned flight
  • First Shuttle flown with crew
  • Far better technology and experience than in the 1960s.
  • Have working rockets like Delta IV, etc.
  • See life support as the top challenge, not the launch hardware
• Feasible because accept far higher risk than NASA?
  • Clark: Definitely a high risk missions
  • But can keep the cancer risk from rad within acceptable range.
  • Crew will accept a higher cancer risk.
  • Taber: Country is shirking risk-taking that it used to make
  • Need to re-calibrate what is risk
  • US technology up to this challenge
  • Best technology base in the world and they are up to this.
• What are early milestones? When will crew recruiting start?
  • Taber: Tito committed to funding this project for two years so can get started without worrying about money
  • Get the whole life support and hardware configuration nailed down.
  • Clark: Milestone driven program.
  • Been busy contacting collegues
  • Taking advantage of personalized medicine. Will be ground-breaking approach for what will be common in decade or two for everyone else.
  • Should aim for crew selection withing 6-12 months
  • Must screen and prevent health issues as much as possible
• Open to international coop?
  • Tito: Specified this mission as an American mission.
  • The crew will be American.
  • Subsystems could be non-American
  • Looking at Canadian supplier of inflatable habitat
• Astronaut criteria?
  • Taber: Strong mechanical knowledge
  • Poynter: Very resilient personalities.
  • Clark: Polar expeditions provide knowledge base about such selection
• Apollo lavishly funded. How to bring in funding?
  • Tito: No expectation of funding from NASA
  • Perhaps data purchase by NASA
  • Will need to raise money from individuals
  • Large institutions raise big money such as raising funding forthe  museum for Shuttle in LA
  • Media rights and sponsorships.
  • Flagship, one-shot deal
• Will there be a space race with other nations?
  • Tito: Probably not for 2018 but definitely will be other nations in space and going to Mars in 2031
• Radiation effects on hardware:
  • Clark: Important issue but lower tech solutions are actually more resilient
  • Taber: Have a very big database of deep space unmanned missions dealing with rad issues
• Cost of mission?
  • Tito: Too early to tell for sure. Expect to be less than unmanned mission to Mars.
  • Same tech basically as for a LEO mission.
  • Doesn't involve propulsion after leaving earth orbit, no EVAs, etc.
  • Replies "2 years" to questions about personal financial commitment
• Launch architectures?
  • Tito: Working with several companies. Have NDAs and can't say too much.
  • Taber: Have multiple options for habitats from companies like Bigelow, etc.
• Chance of medical issues:
  • Clark: Typical chance of a medical issue is 10-15% from experience with submarine, polar expeditions,etc.
• Want to beat China to Mars?
  • Tito: Obviously want to beat China to Mars.
• What if crew dies?
  • Clark: That's part of the risk.
  • Life is risky. Can't offer a guarantee.
  • Polar expediations have dealt with deaths.
  • Tito: Free return was a critical aspect of this mission
  • See a 99% chance of success.
  • Jane: Asked many times after Challenger about manned flight risks.
  • Inspiration lives even after Challenger.

Briefing finishes.

Update: Some other reports on the presentation:

• Private Plan to Send Humans to Mars in 2018 Might Not Be So Crazy - Wired Science/Wired.com
• “It all sort of kept working out”: MacCallum on the development of a human Mars flyby mission - NewSpace Journal
• First private Mars mission aims to launch in 2018 - New Scientist

At the bottom of the Inspiration Mars homepage there are links to some files including the paper: Inspiration Mars Feasibility Analysis - IEEE.

Comments (12)

VaporSpace

another big source of profits for Photoshop ... :) :) :)

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28th February 2013 7:19am

Nathan

The nice thing about a program like this -- with its very exacting deadline -- is that there's no latitude for BS. The only way it would have ANY chance of happening is if they had the resources to begin full-throttle development, like, yesterday. Which apparently they do, and did. So for now they're in the game. Two years from now, they'll need to have raised the funds for the rest of the mission, have their flight(s) on somebody's manifest, have done testing of all critical sub-systems on Read More

The nice thing about a program like this -- with its very exacting deadline -- is that there's no latitude for BS.

The only way it would have ANY chance of happening is if they had the resources to begin full-throttle development, like, yesterday. Which apparently they do, and did. So for now they're in the game.

Two years from now, they'll need to have raised the funds for the rest of the mission, have their flight(s) on somebody's manifest, have done testing of all critical sub-systems on non-flight-weight hardware, have completed final design reviews for all the flight-weight hardware, and begun the manufacturing thereof. If they've hit all those milestones, they'll still be in the game. If they haven't, then the mission is off.

Personally I don't have any way of predicting whether or not they'll make it happen. So I'm just going to wait and see.

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28th February 2013 2:27am

Coastal Ron

It really does seem as more of a money issue and the gating item than anything else to do this. That they haven't explicitly partnered with SpaceX or Bigelow is not a problem at this point, but I think it will be pretty obvious by the end of Tito's two year funding commitment whether it will happen - collecting quarters from school children is not going to make this happen, it will need to be companies with large marketing budgets like Red Bull.

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27th February 2013 12:22pm

Rick Boozer

Yeah, like Delos Harriman did in Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon

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27th February 2013 2:38pm

Rick Boozer

"Taber MacCallum for President"
Wouldn't go that far. For one thing he needs to read the Booz-Allen-Hamilton report.

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27th February 2013 12:10pm

Bennett In Vermont

Yeah, it was just a thought. :-) It was great to see a panel of people speak so clearly and with such commitment. I watched the press conference and have to say that they knocked it out of the park. I had never seen Mr. Tito speak, but man o man does he have backbone or what? Classic moment "Of course I want to beat China to Mars. Don't YOU want America to beat China to Mars? Who here in this room doesn't want America to beat China to Mars?" They had all the bases covered and I'm really Read More

Yeah, it was just a thought. :-)

It was great to see a panel of people speak so clearly and with such commitment.

I watched the press conference and have to say that they knocked it out of the park. I had never seen Mr. Tito speak, but man o man does he have backbone or what? Classic moment "Of course I want to beat China to Mars. Don't YOU want America to beat China to Mars? Who here in this room doesn't want America to beat China to Mars?"

They had all the bases covered and I'm really really impressed. Enough to donate when the time comes.

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27th February 2013 12:53pm

Bennett In Vermont

Taber MacCallum for President

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27th February 2013 11:12am

Guest

Oh sure, these are the guys that willingly lent their time and expertise to what is demonstrably the most naive and idiotic and indeed the most expensive life support system experiment in human history short of the macroscopic planetary experiment we are running on the planet now. The biosphere fraud. I wouldn't trust these guys supplying oxygen to grandma. That being said, at the very least this will drive home the need for simple carbon dioxide management in cabins. They could have been doing Read More

Oh sure, these are the guys that willingly lent their time and expertise to what is demonstrably the most naive and idiotic and indeed the most expensive life support system experiment in human history short of the macroscopic planetary experiment we are running on the planet now. The biosphere fraud. I wouldn't trust these guys supplying oxygen to grandma.

That being said, at the very least this will drive home the need for simple carbon dioxide management in cabins. They could have been doing this twenty years ago. It won't be done in a desert greenhouse with a five megawatt power station this time and entirely without high density plant growth, masquarading as some kind of science at least.

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28th February 2013 8:08am

Brian

If he doesn't have the money right now, it's not gonna happen. :( But as long as he's serious about pouring what money he does have into it, that will still have a significant stimulative effect on R&D in this field. :)

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27th February 2013 10:36am

Rick Boozer

I hate the part where it is said that SLS and the "program of record" are a necessary follow up for Mars exploration. Otherwise, I think the concept has potential, but as the proverbial Zen master said, "We shall see".

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27th February 2013 10:34am

JimNobles

"I hate the part where it is said that SLS and the "program of record" are a necessary follow up for Mars exploration."

I wouldn't worry about that. He, like most people, probably just thinks we need a heavy lift system but probably wouldn't care if SLS was replaced by one that actually could deliver.

That's what I think anyway. They are afterall going full commercial on this thing.

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27th February 2013 4:23pm

Bartosz Malinowski

I can't tell anything for sure about US politics, but it could be true that they are affraid they could antagonize the pro-SLS lobby by merely planning a mission like this one. So I suppose this could a be necessary "politically correct" statement.

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28th February 2013 5:30am

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